Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions — ENERGY

Coal Production

Mr. Stanley: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what decisions he has made regarding capital investment in coal production over the next 10 years.

The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Eric Varley): The National Coal Board's future investment plans are a major concern of the current tripartite examination of the industry's future rôle and I would ask the hon. Member to await the publication of the interim report of that examination.

Mr. Stanley: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the National Coal

Board is seeking a £500 million interest-free loan and, if so, will he confirm that before an annual subsidy of this magniture is granted it will require the approval of this House?

Mr. Varley: The NCB is not seeking an interest-free loan of the proportions referred to by the hon. Gentleman. I ask him to await the publication of the interim report. It will come out tomorrow.

Mr. Tom Boardman: Does the Secretary of State recall that before the previous administration asked this House to approve a massive investment in the coal industry they obtained from the union, under a 20-point plan, an assurance that coal miners' wages would not exceed rises in the cost of living? Will the right hon. Gentleman be obtaining any such assurance this time, and is he confident that he can hold the union to it?

Mr. Varley: That is not the basis of the tripartite examination, although many of the other matters mentioned by the hon. Gentleman will come out in the report of the examination.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is not the situation in the coal industry now desperate? Are we not in a position where the April stocks of coal were 10 million tons lower than last year but where output per man shift is some 5 cwt less than in the comparable period last year?


Now we face a claim for an additional £20 per week, which the union seems determined to press to the uttermost. How can the country have confidence in the industry when it faces these difficulties?

Mr. Varley: It is part of our policy to make sure that the coal industry has a new future and a new perspective. It is true that industrial relations and productive potential went down and suffered in other ways as a result of the policies of the previous Government. It is our aim to make sure that the industry has a new future, and that is what we are setting out to do.

Coal Merchants Federation

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what recent discussions he has had with the Coal Merchants Federation.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Alex Eadie): My Department has close links with the Coal Merchants Federation, and matters of common interest are discussed as necessary.

Mr. Rost: Do the Government realise that the majority of the 15 million consumers of domestic coal are relatively low income families? What will the Government do to cushion the effect of the £3 per ton increase in the price of domestic coal in the autumn? Assuming that these people can still afford to buy coal after the autumn, will the hon. Gentleman have discussions with his colleagues at the Department of the Environment to ensure that public sector houses are built with flues, so that there will still be an opportunity to use domestic coal in the future?

Mr. Eadie: There is constant consultation between the Department of Energy and the Department of the Environment. As for the hon. Gentleman's second point, the National Coal Board's prices to merchants will not be increased until November. However, other factors, such as increased distribution costs, may cause price increases. But distributors' profit margins are controlled by the Price Code under the counter-inflation legislation, and I was asked about the Coal Merchants Federation.

Mr. Sillars: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that many middle and high income families are very sorry that they did not take his advice in the period before 1970, and that they bought oil-fired central heating and now wish that they had put in coal-fired systems?

Mr. Eadie: My hon. Friend's point is a good one, and I tried to make it in a previous debate. I hope that the House takes note of it.

Mr. Redmond: May I press the hon. Gentleman a little further on the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost)? Is not there a complete lack of consumer choice in the forms of heating which can be put into buildings of all types where there are no flues and where, as a result. people are forced to use oil-fired central heating simply because they can instal no other form of heating?

Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman does not have to convince me about that. I wish he had been as vociferous in trying to persuade his right hon. and hon. Friends when they were in Government. It is our intention to do our best to provide consumer choice.

North Sea Oil and Gas

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether the design and construction of the deep water, pre-stressed concrete drilling platforms in the North Sea will be carried out by British consulting engineers; and whether they will be governed by the new British code of practice for concrete construction CP110, adopted by the European Concrete Committee.

The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Gavin Strang): Not all the structures erected in the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea will have been designed and built by British engineers. At present several of the most favoured designs have their origins abroad. However, a number of British designs are available or in the process of development and I hope they will attract orders in the future. The international character of the offshore industry means that structures may be built in accordance with several widely accepted codes, of which CP110 is one.

Mrs. Short: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that many eminent British engineers have been responsible for helping to draw up the European code, which embraces not only the Common Market but Eastern and Western European countries? Is he aware that many of the countries doing this kind of work have very little more experience than we have in the behaviour of concrete under heavy water pressure? Why are we not sponsoring research, to be carried out at Government research establishments, into the behaviour of this material under these conditions?

Mr. Strang: I certainly agree that our prime concern must be for the integrity of the structures and the safety of the people who will work on them. We are considering the whole question of Government research and development. We are in consultation with British engineers and are as anxious as my hon. Friend that they should increase their contribution in this sphere.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that by sabotaging the plans of the previous Government to speed up the approval of sites for concrete platform development in Scotland, the Government have made it less likely that this work will be of British origin?

Mr. Strang: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. When the Secretary of State takes his decision on Drumbuie, we shall announce our plans in this area. In the meantime, there is no evidence to support the contention that our production plans have in any way been put back as a result of our decision on Drumbuie.

Mr. Taylor: Of course they have.

Mr. Strang: They have not.

Mr. Dixon: asked the Secretary of State for Energy whether he will make a further statement about his policy on nationalisation of oil and gas resources in the North Sea.

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement on future policy on the handling of North Sea energy problems.

Mr. Varley: We are reviewing all aspects of licensing policy. A report will

be made to Parliament when the review is complete.

Mr. Dixon: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman can help us a little with that somewhat Delphic utterance? May I assume that, generally speaking, his views on this important issue correspond more closely to those of his right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Home Secretary, for instance, than to those of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Industry?

Mr. Varley: My views correspond with the views of the Government.

Mr. Hamilton: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether there was any truth in the reports in the newspapers last week that the Government were prepared to take 80 per cent. of the profits accruing from oil and that the oil companies had agreed to that figure? Does he agree that if they have so agreed there is something wrong with that, in terms of the national interest? Will he assure the House that the Government will announce their proposals in time for a very full and forthright discussion inside the Labour Party as well as in this House, to ensure that this resource is used exclusively in the national interest?

Mr. Varley: The Government intend that resources in the North Sea and elsewhere throughout or off the shores of Britain will be used for the benefit of the British people. Certainly if nothing were done the British people would not get a proper share and benefit from the wealth of the North Sea.
The reports referred to by my hon. Friend mentioned about 80 per cent. No proposals of that kind have been put to the Government. I hope that it will be possible to make a report in good time to have a debate within the Labour Party and the House of Commons.

Mr. Skeet: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House to which faction he belongs? Does he believe that it is correct to support a British hydrocarbon corporation with a number of multiple buying agencies to bring in the oil? Of what advantage can that be to the British taxpayer and people? From where does he propose to get the finance to carry out the operation?

Mr. Varley: The hon. Gentleman must wait for the review, which I hope will be


ready within a few weeks—certainly before the House goes into recess. There are many misconceptions about public ownership or nationalisation of North Sea oil. British oil is already nationalised. That was done by the last Conservative Government but one, under the Continental Shelf Act 1964.

Mr. Molloy: Will my right hon. Friend make it clear not only that North Sea oil and gas will remain under British control for the benefit of the British economy, but that we shall not be subject to any interference from the EEC or any other organisation which will impinge on British economic sovereignty?

Mr. Varley: British oil will certainly be used for the benefit of the British people. There is another question on the Order Paper relating to the EEC and I believe that that matter will come up again.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to make this statement as soon as he possibly can? Was his attention drawn to the statement by the chairman of one of the oil companies that delay is making it more difficult for the companies to raise finance, and that that is delaying the development of the oil?

Mr. Varley: There is not a shred of evidence that delay is causing a lessening of activity in the North Sea. We are anxious to make a statement as soon as possible, and certainly before the Summer Recess.

Electricity Industry (Subsidy)

Mr. Ridley: asked the Secretary of State for Energy by what percentage domestic electricity bills would have to increase in the autumn in order to eliminate the subsidy received by the electricity industry and the payment of interest on its capital.

Mr. Eadie: I am advised by the industry that it would require a further increase of the order of 20 per cent. overall to be applied to domestic and other quarterly bills from the beginning of October to enable the area boards to break even in 1974–75.

Mr. Ridley: Despite the policies of previous Governments as well as of this Government, would it not be more sen

sible to concentrate the taxpayers' money on helping those who cannot afford to pay their electricity bills rather than subsidising electricity as a commodity? Will the Government give further thought to this matter?

Mr. Eadie: It was not possible to correct the legacy of the last Government's restraint on electricity prices in one step.

Mr. Ridley: Why not?

Mr. Eadie: If the hon. Gentleman will read the report of the debate that took place on this matter he will observe that the Government are proposing to increase heating costs by one-third to the people to whom he referred. I think that he will also be aware that the official Opposition have a motion down on this matter on Thursday.

Mr. Palmer: Does my hon. Friend agree that until the advent of the last Government the electricity industry prided itself on being the most efficient of the nationalised industries, that it had never asked for a subsidy, and that it would prefer to be without it today?

Mr. Eadie: Yes. The electricity industry had a glorious record until the previous Government took office. It is a pity that it then started to make substantial losses. Perhaps this Government will manage to rectify the situation.

EEC Director of Energy

Mr. Biffen: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will seek an early meeting with M. Spaak, EEC Director of Energy.

Mr. Varley: I have no plans to meet M. Spaak, but I recently had discussions with M. Simonet, the EEC commissioner responsible for energy matters.

Mr. Biffen: In that discussion did the right hon. Gentleman point out to M. Simonet that M. Spaak, in his speech at the Financial Times conference in New York last April, made claims for Community control of North Sea oil which would be wholly unacceptable to a wide range of political opinion in this country, whether or not one is in favour of fundamental renegotiation? Did he also inquire of M. Simonet exactly what he meant when he said that United Kingdom regulations to control the export of oil


would be in breach of EEC Treaty obligations?

Mr. Varley: Many interesting proposals are coming from the Commission on energy policy. M. Spaak's speech was about European energy policy, on which the Commission has drafted proposals which we have discussed. These proposals will be considered further and will no doubt come up in Brussels, with the Council of Ministers, in due course.

Mr. Marten: If the European Community proposed that North Sea oil, which is British, should become the property of the Community, and if there were majority voting, the majority would clearly vote for the oil to become Community property. Therefore, is this not a very good example illustrating that we should hang on to the Luxembourg Agreement and have the ability to use the veto at all times?

Mr. Varley: We certainly have the ability to use the veto, but it is my firm intention, and that of the Government, to make sure that British interests are properly safeguarded in these discussions.

Oil Refineries

Mr. MacFarlane: asked the Secretary of State for Energy how many oil refineries are currently under construction in the United Kingdom; and how many more are planned between 1975 and 1980.

Mr. Varley: One refinery is under construction. I am aware of five others being planned, of which one has been given outline planning permission, and the rest are under consideration.

Mr. MacFarlane: I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he satisfied with the number of refineries planned between now and the end of this decade, and will he confirm that capacity for this decade has been assessed correctly, with special reference to the exporting of middle distillates which is essential to the future of this country?

Mr. Varley: Within the Department we are reviewing refinery policy and we hope to be able to make a report about that review in due course.

Mr. Harry Ewing: Bearing in mind the review of refinery policy, is it the Gov

ernment's intention to develop the refining capacity of this country beyond the domestic requirement, or to develop it only up to that requirement? What are my right hon. Friend's plans for additional refining capacity in Scotland?

Mr. Varley: I have already said that we are looking critically at this matter. I want to make sure that Britain has the refining capacity that it needs. With regard to Scotland, my Department is in close touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, who, as my hon. Friend knows, has planning responsibilities in that country.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that a refinery may now cost the taxpayer tens of millions of pounds in investment grants, for an absolutely derisory number of jobs created? Will he consider the matter carefully and ensure that public funds are not wasted in this manner again?

Mr. Varley: I am not sure that I can accept the hon. Gentleman's comments about investment grants. The previous Conservative administration stopped investment grants, but reintroduced them in 1972. It is our intention to continue providing investment grants in the weaker economic regions.

Off-peak Electricity

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what proportion of the electricity industry's receipts are from the sale of off-peak electricity.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: asked the Sectary of State for Energy what percentage of the electricity industry's revenue is from the sale of off-peak electricity.

Mr. Tomlinson: asked the Secretary of State for Energy how much of the electricity industry's receipts since 1971 has been attributable to the sale of off-peak electricity.

Mr. Eadie: About 5 per cent. of total revenue from sales of electricity in the three years 1st April 1971 until 31st March 1974 came from off-peak sales under domestic and other quarterly tariffs.

Mr. Molloy: May I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the great anger and annoyance of many people because of the recent announcement about night


storage heaters and white meters? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear hear."] Hundreds of thousands of ordinary people think that they have been cheated and conned—

Mr. Raphael Tuck: It is no use hon. Gentleman opposite cheering; the fact is that they were going to put up prices.

Mr. Molloy: If the Trade Descriptions Act has technically not been broken, it has been raped in spirit. Does my hon. Friend not agree that in view of the intense feeling among people he ought to reconsider the anouncement that has been made and that the entire proposal should be abolished? Otherwise folk will have no confidence whatsoever in any future announcements by great public industries.

Mr. Eadie: I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree when I say that we are well aware of the statement that he has made about the feelings of consumers of off-peak electricity. My hon. Friend will be aware that about 2 million out of 17 million consumers use the appliances that he has mentioned, and he knows that the House is to debate this matter on Thursday.

Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that that complacent reply will not satisfy organisations such as Help the Aged, which are desperately disturbed by the fears which his announcement has caused among old people?

Mr. Eadie: Yes, Sir, but the hon. Gentleman must be fair and agree that the Government have implemented a policy which can be of assistance to the aged. They have announced that heating charges for people on supplementary benefit will be increased by one-third from July.
The hon. Gentleman knows that the Conservative Opposition have put down a motion on this subject for debate on Thursday. As they agreed with the fuel cost adjustment clause, the House will await with interest the statement by the Opposition Front Bench during that debate.

Mr. Huckfield: Does my hon. Friend accept that once upon a time night storage tariff customers used to be valuable to the generating boards because they used off-peak capacity? Because of that, an advertising campaign, which proved a

great success, was undertaken to persuade people that they could install electric central heating for a small sum per week. Is my hon. Friend now saying that the Electricity Council and the generating boards do not want night storage tariff customers? Will my hon. Friend consider the whole matter again, because there is a tremendous amount of feeling on this issue?

Mr. Eadie: There is to be a debate on this topic on Thursday, but my hon. Friend should not be under any illusion about what I am saying about energy costs. I am saying that there has been a tremendous amount of miscalculation on both sides of the House about sources of energy.

Mr. Tom Boardman: Will the hon. Gentleman say what proportion of the increase in off-peak heating is directly attributable to the increased cost of coal due to increases in miners' wages?

Mr. Eadie: The answer is one-third to coal and two-thirds to oil.

Mr. Tomlinson: I accept that much of the problem was created by the Conservative administration and was disguised by them, but will my hon. Friend explain to my constituents how they are to meet this increased cost of 70 per cent., in addition to the increased rate burdens which they have had to suffer? Will my hon. Friend accept that we find it small comfort that he tells the House that the increase affects only 2 million people? For them the increase is as severe and damaging as it could possibly be.

Mr. Eadie: I was not trying to give any comfort; I was trying to give my hon. Friend the facts. I repeat that this matter is to be debated on Thursday.

Mr. Trotter: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what was the amount spent by the nationalised electricity industry in the last five years on advertising aimed at encouraging consumers to use cheap off-peak electricity for storage heating.

Mr. Eadie: I am advised by the Electricity Council that between 1969–70 and 1973–74 the approximate annual amounts were: £1·12 million; £1·70 million; £770,000; £390,000 and £140,000.

Mr. Trotter: I should declare an interest, in that I put my trust in these advertisements and completely converted to night store heaters, only to be conned like 2 million other people. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if there had been a similar breach of trust or misrepresentation by a private organisation it would have been pilloried? Is this the unacceptable face of nationalisation, and will he, before Thursday, consider his policy on this matter?

Mr. Eadie: On the first point, if the hon. Gentleman had consulted me and some of my hon. Friends we could have given him good advice on what proper central heating should be. His second question has nothing to do with nationalisation. It has an awful lot to do with the fact that the House and the country did not think out a proper energy policy in relation to cost.

Mrs. Dunwoody: Does my hon. Friend accept that no matter how incompetent the previous administration were over this nationalised industry it will not do now to say that people must accept these charges? I am afraid that it will be a great hardship to a number of people. We expect from him much more enlightenment in the administration of this industry.

Mr. Eadie: I certainly take the strictures of my hon. Friend, but the question related to advertisements for night storage heaters. It still is a cheaper form of electricity—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes it is. It is cheaper than ordinary electricity. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that it is preferable, from the point of view of conservation, that night storage heaters should be sold in conjunction with cheap insulation.

Mr. Peyton: Not all of us would accept the hon. Gentleman as a heating consultant, but would he advise his right hon. Friend that he failed earlier to answer the perfectly reasonable question of his hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield), and that as a result of Government policy we shall now have a growing mistrust from the public, who once felt that an agreement had been made, respecting the interests of both sides, that special prices should be given to those who used off-peak heating, and that this has now been violated?

Mr. Eadie: My qualifications as a heating consultant may be better than those of the right hon. Gentleman. He should address his second point to his right hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench. They agreed to the fuel cost adjustment clauses and they will have to enlighten the right hon. Gentleman in the debate on Thursday.

Mr. Palmer: Is my hon. Friend aware of the contradiction in the attitude of Conservative Members, who are always lecturing the nationalised industries on the need to be commercially minded and then, apparently, deny them the right to advertise?

Mr. Eadie: I could not agree with my hon. Friend more.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Is it not now becoming apparent to the hon. Gentleman and to his right hon. Friend that they would be well advised to accept the Opposition motion about off-peak heating, especially since the advice of the Patronage Secretary is that they should accept it?

Mr. Eadie: That is the great dilemma that the House will face. We do not yet know what the Opposition policy is. We look forward with great interest to Thursday's debate.

Mr. Hunt: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what is the average cost of the 70 per cent. rise in off-peak electricity to those households which have installed night storage heaters.

Mr. Eadie: For typical households with night storage heating using about 12,000 units a year, of which 9,000 are at off-peak or night rates, the increase in their bills is expected to average about 75p a week.

Mr. Hunt: As, in the main, these night storage heaters have been installed by householders with very limited means, does not a figure of that kind represent a savage blow to their weekly budgets? Is it not time that we had at least some expression of sympathy from Ministers to these people in their pressing plight?

Mr. Eadie: There is no lack of sympathy. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the House is to debate this matter on Thursday.

Mr. Greville Janner: Is it not completely hypocritical of Conservative Members to attack this decision, when it arose directly out of their plans and their arrangements? That said, however, is my hon. Friend aware that the complaints which most of us on the Government side of the House have received have come from people of limited means, who regard the change as extremely unfair?

Mr. Eadie: I am glad that my hon. and learned Friend has raised the question of people of limited means. As I told the House previously, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services is trying to take care of this matter and has made announcements relative to the giving of some financial aid.

Mr. Dykes: asked the Secretary of State for Energy how many representations have been received from the public in regard to the increase in night storage charges for domestic electricity heating.

Mr. Rose: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what representations he has received concerning the proposed increases in costs of electricity for night storage heaters.

Mr. Eadie: I have received 333 letters from hon. Members and 416 direct from the public about the electricity price increases. The bulk of them refer to the increases in off-peak and night rates. In addition, I have seen the letter sent to the Prime Minister by the National Consumer Protection Council on 10th June covering about 3,000 letters from consumers and signed on behalf of various organisations.

Mr. Dykes: Will the Minister stop appearing to be so complacent about this matter? Is he not aware that hundreds of thousands of people are facing literally unbearable increases in charges? Will he for one moment forget the debate later this week, behind which he has continued to shelter for the whole of this Question Time, and undertake to postpone any of these increases for three months pending full inquiries?

Mr. Eadie: As Question Time goes on I begin to gain the impression that Opposition Members would like to forget

the debate on Thursday. I do not think that the House can forget it

Mr. Leadbitter: I hope that my hon. Friend will bear in mind that it is of little consequence either to many of us in the House or, certainly, to the people affected by this matter where he says that the blame is laid. Is he aware that the people involved place the responsibility on many of us in the House? Is he, therefore, aware that unless something is said on Thursday to change our minds, some of us will not be persuaded that we should support him and the Government?

Mr. Eadie: I note what my hon. Friend has said. We shall have to wait until Thursday night.

Solar Energy

Mr. Hannan: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what plans he has for providing financial assistance for research and development of solar energy.

Mr. Strang: The United Kingdom is contributing to a programme of research on solar energy within the EEC and some research at universities is being funded by the SRC. We have no plans to increase expenditure in this area at present.

Mr. Hannan: Is that not an extremely unsatisfactory answer? Everyone agrees—as I am sure the Minister does—that the demand for energy is continuing to increase? Although it appears that the Government would have people believe that the energy crisis has disappeared, the need for continued research and development of alternative forms of energy other than fossil fuels is of vital importance.

Mr. Strang: I have noted the hon. Gentleman's comments. He will be pleased to hear that the new Energy Technology Support Unit at Harwell is to carry out an independent study to see whether the Government's views on this matter are soundly based.

Sir John Hall: Will the hon. Gentleman quantify in money terms the amount of research that is being carried out?

Mr. Strang: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the figure, because the money is not sponsored by the Department but


comes through the Science Research Council. However, given notice I am sure that we could extract further information on this.

Energy Production and Consumption

Mr. Skeet: asked the Secretary of State for Energy, if he will give an estimate of the overall figure for the growth of energy consumption between 1974 and 1980 and 1985; and what is likely to be the annual performance of coal, gas, electricity and oil industries in the national programme.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will give his estimates of British oil consumption by 1980, 1985 and 1990.

Mr. Varley: Estimates of United Kingdom oil and gas production and reserves were given in the Brown Book presented to Parliament last month. As regards other estimates, my Department is engaged continuously in preparing forecasts of various aspects of energy supply and demand. Many features of the present energy situation are very uncertain, so that forecasts of specific items are constantly changing and could be very misleading. I consider, therefore, that publication of estimates of either future energy consumption or of the performance of the energy industries would not he helpful.

Mr. Skeet: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman realises that he is saying absolutely nothing about the Question. He must realise that fuels are to some extent interrelated in the energy market, and as North Sea oil and gas are buoyant they may have an adverse effect on the other fuels. In view of the fact that coal productivity has dropped from 47 cwt. to 42 cwt. per man shift in the past year, what will be the position of coal by 1980, and shortly after that? Will it not be overtaken by the buoyancy of North Sea oil and gas?

Mr. Varley: It is our intention to maintain coal production and, where possible, to increase it. When the interim report is published tomorrow the hon. Gentleman will be able to study it and see how we intend to do it.
I am sorry that at the moment I cannot give estimates of the sort the hon. Gentleman requires, but, as he knows,

over the next few weeks critical statements will be made on nuclear power, the nuclear reactor policy and on North Sea oil and gas.

Mr. Skeet: When?

Mr. Varley: Before the House goes into recess it will have, on that basis, a lot of information.

Mr. Wilson: I regret that the Secretary of State has failed to give a positive and definite answer to the Question before him, but does he not agree that on the basis of the material in the Brown Book recently produced by his Department, the question of the myth of self-sufficiency is disposed of? What proposals has he to deal with the question of control of production of oil in the North Sea in future years?

Mr. Varley: Control of production in the North Sea will come when Labour's policy is implemented. That policy is majority participation in operations in the North Sea. That was made absolutely clear in the manifesto and in the Queen's Speech and debates upon it.
British self-sufficiency is certainly possible. If one considers the question of coal supplies, the nuclear power policy and British oil, the perspective of self-sufficiency by 1980 is certainly realistic.

Natural Gas (Conversion Programme)

Mr. Robert Taylor: asked the Secretary of State for Energy what percentage of British Gas proposals for converting from town to natural gas had been completed up to the most convenient date.

Mr. Strang: I am advised by British Gas that at the end of March, 76 per cent. of conversion work had been completed.

Mr. Taylor: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that this conversion has been carried out with the minimum of inconvenience to the general public and that the congratulations of the House are due to the management and employees, whether of nationalised industries or not, for the fine way in which they have done the work, and will no doubt continue to carry it out?

Mr. Strang: I am sure that the management and workers of British Gas will be most encouraged, as will be the contractors, by the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

Mr. Rost: Will the hon. Gentleman give a reassurance that the British Gas Corporation will be able to cope with conversion for those people who will want to switch from heating by night storage electricity to gas?

Mr. Strang: The hon. Gentleman is raising a quite separate issue.

Energy Industries (Retail Outlets)

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will give consideration to co-ordinating the retail outlets of the gas, electricity, coal and oil industries; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Varley: The industries referred to by my hon. Friend of course operate as separate commercial entities, but I have taken note of the sentiments underlying my hon. Friend's Question, which I know are widely shared.

Mr. Evans: I thank my right hon. Friend for that good reply. However—seeing that we now have coal, gas and electricity under public ownership, and that oil and gas from the North Sea will, we hope, soon be publicly owned—would it not be a good thing to set up a coordinating service for consumers on energy matters, so as to give impartial advice to consumers on what forms of energy, heating or lighting they should choose?

Mr. Varley: I have heard that suggestion previously. I plan to have regular meetings with the leaders of the publicly-owned industries and I shall certainly have my hon. Friend's suggestion on the agenda.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Before pursuing that useful suggestion, will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that he will remove an anomaly whereby in Scotland the price of gas is 27 per cent. more than the average south of the border?

Mr. Varley: I am happy to look into the point, but I cannot give the hon. Gen

tleman any assurance that it can be done as easily as he suggests.

Mr. David Stoddart: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is great public concern at the fact that these nationalised industries spend a great deal of public money in advertising their products against each other? When he is having the conversations with representatives of those industries, would it not be better to ensure that they co-ordinate their services, in order that people get the best possible service from whichever nationalised industry they are involved with?

Mr. Varley: As I have already indicated to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdare (Mr. Evans), this is one of the aspects that I shall want to discuss with leaders of the nationalised industries.

Mr. Patrick Jenkin: What advice is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to give to consumers who may be tempted by the increase in off-peak electricity charges to switch to gas and incur stiff investment, only to find that gas prices go up in a year or two?

Mr. Varley: I am not sure that I understand the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, or what he is suggesting. If he is going to kick up a fuss as a result of the Government's having to adopt the fuel cost adjustment clauses that he accepted in principle, is he now saying that we should go to the Gas Corporation and say, "Put your prices up as well"?

Mr. Jenkin: I want to know what advice the right hon. Gentleman is to give to the customer.

Mr. Varley: We certainly know the advice which the right hon. Gentleman gave to the Electricity Council during the period of the election. That advice was that the Conservative Government had agreed on the fuel cost adjustment clause, which has resulted in the situation regarding night storage heaters.

Conservation

Mr. Sillars: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement about the progress he is making towards the formulation of a policy of energy conservation.

Mr. Varley: I hope to announce my policy shortly.

Mr. Sillars: In view of the economic state of the country and the implications involved for capital expenditure, in the generating boards' next nuclear power programme, would it not serve us better if we concentrated more on energy conservation and a better utilisation of present capacity than on building the number of nuclear power stations which the electricity generating boards have in mind at present?

Mr. Varley: I cannot go into great detail on the nuclear reactor policy. As I have already told the House, we intend to make a statement about that within the next few weeks. Some of the factors mentioned by my hon. friend will, I hope, come out in that statement, but the more general point of energy efficiency and energy substitution is one to which we attach great importance.

Mr. Tim Renton: In view of the Labour Government's total failure to reduce Britain's trade deficit, will the Secretary of State tell us whether his Department is considering introducing rationing by means other than higher prices on domestic lighting and heating and on petrol to private individuals in order to save Britain's oil import bill?

Mr. Varley: The preamble to that supplementary question shows that the Conservative Government certainly have no scruples. There are no plans to introduce rationing along the lines mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Ronald Atkins: Will my right hon. Friend advise his right hon. Friend that one way of conserving energy would be to electrify all main-line railways in this country?

Mr. Varley: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. I am sorry that I cannot go into it.

Mining Subsidence

Mr. Alison: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he is satisfied with the adequacy of the terms of compensation for farmers and others affected by mining subsidence.

Mr. Eadie: I am not aware of any great dissatisfaction with the way the

National Coal Board discharges its liability under the Coal-Mining (Subsidence) Act 1957.

Mr. Alison: Does the hon. Gentleman think it reasonable that losses in quantity and quality of crops, and other consequential losses should, when large-scale mining subsidence occurs, be made eligible for compensation?

Mr. Eadie: The hon. Gentleman knows, I think, that an inter-departmental group is studying that matter. The subject is very complex and the Department has had to give higher priority to more pressing matters, but I hope to receive the report in the next few weeks.

Gas Consumers (Complaints Procedure)

Mr. John Ellis: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he is satisfied with the operation of the complaints procedure as it affects gas consumers.

Mr. Strang: Yes, Sir. If consumers are dissatisfied they can consult the gas consumers' councils—independent bodies set up to look after gas consumers' interests.

Mr. Ellis: Will my hon. Friend have a word with the East Midlands Gas Board? Is he aware of the details of a case concerning Mr. Aistrope, of which I have given details to his private office? The board is pursuing him for the payment of £10 on a bill of over £400. I think that he was misled, and that the Registrar of Scunthorpe County Court dismissed the case brought by the board because he, too, believed him to have been misled. Is he aware that the board is still harassing my constituent and that its members are behaving like a collection of little Hitlers, with no idea of good consumer relations? Will he give the board the biggest rocket it has ever had and tell it to "knock it off"?

Mr. Strang: As soon as I received word of the situation of my hon. Friend's constituent I asked for an immediate report, but he will recognise that since the matter is now sub judice it would be inappropriate for me to comment.

Energy Supplies and Fuel Policy

Mr. Leadbitter: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will now publish


a White Paper on energy supplies and fuel policy.

Mr. Varley: I am reviewing energy problems and intend to keep the House in touch with my thinking on them, but I have no immediate proposals for publishing a White Paper.

Mr. Leadbitter: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that we are very much with him in the review that he is undertaking? If he has no immediate proposals, will he tell the House whether eventually, after the review, it is his intention to produce a White Paper?

Mr. Varley: I shall certainly consider that matter.

Mr. Grimond: If the Minister does produce a White Paper, will it cover all types of energy supply, and will it give some indication of the amount of resources which are required to get the different types of energy?

Mr. Varley: If I eventually publish a White Paper I would hope that it would contain that kind of information. But I hope that the House will realise that over the next few weeks I intend to make major statements about North Sea oil and gas policy and nuclear reactor policy, and it is intended to publish the interim report of the tripartite examination tomorrow.

Mr. Jessel: What weight will the Secretary of State give to the possible future strategic threat to this country's oil supplies arising from the growth in the size of the Russian Navy in relation to the idea of getting more oil from the North Sea?

Mr. Varley: That is a question for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, but the hon. Gentleman can rest assured that security of supplies, in the sense that he has outlined it, is a matter which the Government have considered.

National Nuclear Corporation

Mr. Palmer: asked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will take steps to bring about a reconstruction of the shareholding of the National Nuclear Corporation on the lines recommended by the Select Committee on Science and Technology.

Mr. Varley: No, Sir. We must now concentrate on getting under way our nuclear programme, on which I hope to make a statement shortly.

Mr. Palmer: Does not my right hon. Friend agree, however, that the National Nuclear Corporation is as yet simply on paper? Is there not now an opportunity to reconsider the structure of this company to increase the State participation—a course which was recommended by the Select Committee on Science and Technology, which at that time had a Conservative majority in its membership?

Mr. Varley: I am well aware of the views of the Select Committee and of my hon. Friend on this matter, but the immediate priority is for the Government to come to a decision on nuclear reactor choice and to make sure that that programme goes ahead. It may well be that in the future we shall have to consider some of the more fundamental questions that have been raised by my hon. Friend.

Coal Production and Reserves

Mr. Grimond: asked the Secretary of State for energy if he will publish a report on coal production and reserves comparable to the report on production and reserves of oil and gas in the United Kingdom, and if he will give comparative estimates of the cost of resources necessary to exploit various types of energy including nuclear energy.

Mr. Varley: The future level of coal production is a major concern of the coal industry examination, and an interim report is to be published tomorrow with a final report by the end of the summer. Reserves are not a limiting factor.
It is not possible to indicate what resources will be involved in future exploitation of the various forms of energy. Any estimates at the present time could be misleading.

Mr. Grimond: Does the Secretary of State agree that there are very great reserves of energy in the world but that it is getting more expensive, in terms of money and resources, to get them? Will tomorrow's document give some indication of the size of the new Yorkshire coalfield, which I believe to be enormous?

Mr. Varley: The report will certainly mention the reserves in the new Yorkshire


coalfield. They are about 2,000 million tons, with further possibilities as exploration takes place.

Mr. Hooley: What calculations have been made about the future production of coal, in the light of the possible availability of manpower, on the assumption that we have full employment over the next 10 years?

Mr. Varley: Manpower in the coal-mining industry will continue to be a problem, particularly in the low-cost coalfields of Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. One problem in particular will be attracting men who will go into the pits and dig the coal at the coal face.

Oral Answers to Questions — OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT

Middle East (Aid)

Mr. Hooley: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what reports have been received from the Middle East development divisions of her Department since December 1973 on aid requirements in that area; and if she will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. William Price): My Department receives a constant supply of information from Middle East Development Division in Beirut on the aid requirements of the 20 developing countries which it covers. Their needs are of many kinds but the requests for our assistance relate chiefly to the development of their natural resources, industrial potential and technology.

Mr. Hooley: Is my hon. Friend aware that the technical assistance given to the Egyptian Government to help clear the Suez Canal has been warmly appreciated by the Egyptian people? Will he draw the attention of the Middle East Development Division to the fact that the new diplomatic climate there following the disengagement between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Egypt has led to a greatly changed attitude towards the West and a great welcome for anything that we can do for those countries by way of peaceful technical development?

Mr. Price: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. In Egypt we took what we thought was the right decision, and we believe that it has been widely welcomed.

Loans (Amortisation and Interest)

Mr. George Cunningham: asked the Minister of Overseas Development what was the value of the estimated return flow to this country of amortisation and interest on old loans in 1973–74; and what is her estimate for 1974–75.

Mr. William Price: Amortisation receipts from aid loans during 1973–74 totalled £33·5 million and interest £26·7 million. Our estimates for 1974–75 are amortisation receipts of £38·8 million and interest payments totalling £28·0 million.

Mr. Cunningham: Is my hon. Friend aware that it has frequently been proposed that the return flow of amortisation and interest should somehow be recycled for use as fresh aid without fresh authorisation? Is he aware that the Germans have made some move in that direction? Do the present administration intend to move in the same direction?

Mr. Price: My hon. Friend will understand that there has been a good deal of recycling already, particularly on interest payments. We accept that it is no use helping a poor country today only to hang huge debts around its necks for 25 years. That is why, in conjunction with other donor nations, we have accepted a target of 86 per cent. in grant aid to the 25 poorest countries.

Disaster Relief

Mr. Spearing: asked the Minister for Overseas Development whether Her Majesty's Government will take steps designed to ensure that the United Kingdom element in any international disaster operations can be deployed to maximum effect.

Mr. William Price: We are participating fully in various international efforts, such as in the Sahel, and my right hon. Friend has reviewed the organisation of ODM in order to facilitate rapid and effective response to disaster situations. She hopes to make a statement before the Summer Recess.

Mr. Spearing: I thank my hon. Friend for that statement. Is he aware that questions asked by certain members of the Select Committee on Overseas Development in Bangladesh earlier this year—questions which have been published—reveal a situation about disaster relief


which is not reassuring? Will he examine the disaster relief arrangements that the United Kingdom has in Bangladesh, and perhaps draw this matter to the attention of our permanent representative at the United Nations.

Mr. Price: I shall certainly do that. The evidence of recent disasters is that the world as a whole and individuals have not been ungenerous. The problems have arisen mainly with organisation and the speed with which relief gets to the disaster area. It is on those two points that we are concentrating our efforts.

Mr. Wood: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Sahel. What particular measures, either separately or collectively, are Her Majesty's Government now considering for relief and rehabilitation in that area?

Mr. Price: It would take a very long reply properly to deal with that matter. However, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I went to Rome last week to discuss this matter with the FAO. We are doing all that we can to speed up the international operation. This is a massive international operation. Some 700,000 tons of food, alone, is going in. We are doing all we can to get it there before the rains this year. Also, we are planning for what we see as the inevitable consequences of this drought next year. We are working very closely with the FAO. Mistakes have been made, but we are doing everything that we can to ensure that they are not repeated.

Sir G. de Freitas: Reverting to the original Question, will my hon. Friend see that the Ministry of Defence is consulted, to see what more it can do? Is my hon. Friend aware that our Armed Forces, especially the Royal Air Force, have experience in relief work that is unequalled in many other countries?

Mr. Price: I accept that. That is the reason why the military have been very much involved in relief operations, mainly the airlifting of medical supplies and trucks both to Ethiopia and the Sahel. We have so far sent 90 trucks, and that is not a bad record. The military forces have been of immense value in these operations.

World Poverty (Aid Organisations)

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Minister for Overseas Development what further

consultations have been held with organisations such as Oxfam, Christian Aid, War on Want, UNICEF, Save the Children Fund, World Development Movement and other organisations dealing with the problem of world poverty; and if she will make a statement.

Mr. William Price: My right hon. Friend and I have been seeing representatives of a number of voluntary organisations in order to hear their views and discuss how we can collaborate more closely in carrying out our respective responsibilities. We have had particularly useful exchanges about joint action in emergencies.

Mr. Evans: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he realise that the major problem facing mankind is the issue of world poverty and that as a nation we are not yet making the sort of contribution that we should? These organisations are doing a valuable job, educationally, in preparing the people of Britain to see that as a nation we make a greater contribution. While giving them general support, will my hon. Friend talk over some specific problems with them to ease the difficulties faced by some of these organisations? Will he consider the matter of rates on their gift shops, because these are educationally attractive, are doing good work, and need to be encouraged?

Mr. Price: Certainly we shall be considering the last matter with the voluntary organisations. I have never underestimated their value. The money that they raise and spend is important, but what is more important is the fact that they should arouse public opinion, particularly for the disaster organisations. We have worked closely with them in the last three months. We shall be asking them to attend a seminar later in the year to thrash out a determined policy for closer co-operation between them.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: I recognise the idealism behind many of these voluntary organisations, but is the Minister nevertheless aware that more than one of those mentioned in the Question is losing support and contributions because of the widespread belief that some of its organisers are politically motivated?

Mr. Price: I think that the hon. Gentleman would see a political bogy


man among starving children in a refugee camp in Timbuktu. I do not think that his question deserves much of a reply.

DISTURBANCES (RED LION SQUARE)

Sir K. Joseph (by Private Notice): asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the events in Red Lion Square on Saturday.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Roy Jenkins): The violence which took place in and around Red Lion Square on 15th June followed police action to prevent a clash between a demonstration organised by the National Front and a counter-demonstration by a movement now called Liberation.
I understand that the National Front arranged some time ago to hold a meeting in the larger of two rooms at Conway Hall on the subject of "Stop immigration—start repatriation". Subsequently a small room at Conway Hall was made available for the Liberation meeting, and both meetings were to be preceded by marches.
I would prefer not to go into detail at this stage about the precise sequence of events on 15th June. With around 50 charges pending, as well as a coroner's inquest, it is obvious that there are substantial sub judice aspects. It is evident that there are some differences of opinion about the actions of those involved, clearly pertinent to the court proceedings. I would also like more time to consider a report which was given to me this morning by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis.
However, I take this opportunity of expressing regret—on behalf, I am sure, of the whole House—that in the course of Saturday afternoon a young man died. There were also a number of injuries, not least among the police. The exact cause of the death is not yet clear and we should be careful not to comment on that.
I cannot be too emphatic in my condemnation of the actions of all those who contribute to acts of violence. The burden imposed on the police by disorder of this kind is very heavy. It is more than time

that those who organise demonstrations which may develop into violent confrontations realise and accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

Sir K. Joseph: We on this side of the House also regret the death of the student and the injuries, not least those of the police.
Is the Secretary of State aware that the vast majority of the public will have nothing but respect and admiration for the way in which the police carry out their very difficult duties? We understand that the right hon. Gentleman needs time to consider the reports that we shall be receiving. We echo the words of condemnation that he rightly used against those who seek to exploit opportunities for violence.
I have three questions for the right hon. Gentleman. Does he take into account, in deciding how to use his powers under the Public Order Act, the degree to which assurances given to the police in the past by the same organisation have been fulfilled? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we recognise the difficulties of the age-old dilemma of tolerance for the intolerant with their hateful propensity for violence? Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that there is far too much violence already and, although he cannot work miracles, is he determined to learn the lessons of Saturday, whatever they are?
My third question, which follows from the second, is to ask will he consider whether the powers under the Public Order Act 1936 are adequate in present conditions?

Mr. Jenkins: My powers under the Public Order Act are limited and can be used only in response to a request from the Commissioner of Police or other chief officer of police concerned. Clearly the police would take these matters into account. The police have had to be used over a period of 10 years or more past for dealing with demonstrations with a potentiality for violence, and there have been substantially larger demonstrations than those which took place on Saturday.
I will certainly draw all the lessons I can, as I am sure that we all shall, from events of this sort. I am always open to constructive suggestions, but I


do not think that at present an amendment of the Public Order Act is called for.

Mrs. Jeger: I appreciate my right hon. Friend's difficulties, but can he say at this stage whether permission was given by the police for both these marches to take place at the same time in the same small area in my constituency? Can he say also whether any advice was given by the police to the authorities of Conway Hall? It seems extraordinary to some of us, not only that part of Conway Hall, which has been a venue of many liberal and progressive assemblies, should have been let out for Fascist purposes on Saturday, but also that simultaneously another part of the same hall should have been let out to a rival organisation. Can my right hon. Friend say whether any advice was given on those points?

Mr. Jenkins: No permission is necessary to hold a march. The police had consultations with the organisers, who wished to march along the same route, and arranged that they should march along separate routes which, it was hoped, would avoid their coming together.
The letting of the hall and the holding of a meeting on private premises is a matter not for the police but for those who own the private premises and are responsible for the letting. Those responsible for the hall were aware of the possible difficulty and, indeed, issued a statement making it clear that they believed in free speech and that they were determined to go ahead on this basis, including, where the contract had been entered into, letting the larger hall to the National Front. They issued a reasoned statement giving their views why the Conway Hall should be used for an expression of views whether or not they agreed with them. This was a matter for the authorities concerned with the running of the hall.
The responsibility of the police was to try to the best of their ability to ensure that clashes and confrontations did not take place. They were present in a fair degree of force to endeavour to prevent this from happening. They were not in the event wholly successful, but on what I have heard so far I do not myself

believe that the blame in any way rests with them.

Mr. Beith: Does the Home Secretary recognise that both of the organisations or groups involved on Saturday contained within their numbers people who have no sympathy for free speech and who are actually dedicated to provoking confrontation with police, in the belief that this will alienate people from the forces of law and order?
Does the Home Secretary recognise that the number of demonstrations with which the Metropolitan Police have had to contend is placing an intolerable bur-en upon them and that ways must be sought to ease the burden? Does he recognise that there seems to be a desire on the part of some people to place the police in what might appear to be a guilty position and that this means that the tactics they employ must be carefully considered and when, as in a situation such as this, the police might have been in error in some respect, the tactics need to be investigated carefully?

Mr. Jenkins: I certainly recognise that many of those who are most anxious to demonstrate and to proclaim their own rights to free speech, and to something going a great deal further than that, have little respect for free speech in, and for the freedom of, others. However, it is one thing to recognise that and another to be able to deny them their rights, even according to their perverted lights, without completely changing the basis upon which free speech and the right to protest have existed for a very long time in this country.
I recognise also that this places a considerable burden upon the police. I thought at one stage that the hon. Member was implying that there was some guilt on the police in this respect.

Mr. Beith: Not necessarily.

Mr. Jenkins: I do not want to prejudge any issues in that way. I am prepared to consider looking at the point, and I can tell the House that the Commissioner of Police informed me this morning that he would welcome an independent public inquiry into everything which took place.

Mr. Arthur Latham: Without challenging my right hon. Friend's remarks about some of the demonstrators, may I suggest


to him that those remarks certainly did not apply to the Liberation contingent. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish."] Those who know other groups know this to be true, and that will stand in the inquiry. As an observer and participant in many demonstrations over the years, I have been impressed, in broad terms and with only occasional individual exceptions, by the exemplary way in which the police have handled situations.
Does my right hon. Friend know that there was at one time thought to be a riot group amongst the mounted police who were particularly rough with demonstrators? Does he agree with my observation that in recent years the mounted police have either not been present or have been used very much in reserve, usually as a fourth line of defence? Does he agree that on this occasion the mounted police were used as a second line of defence with what turned out to be an inadequate cordon of foot police? Will he comment on who is responsible for that change of policy? Very briefly, will he tell me—[HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] This is a brief but nevertheless important point. Will my right hon. Friend tell me whether, in connection with the charges which are likely to be made, the names and addresses of those wearing black shirts were taken, a clearly identifiable association with a political organisation? Will he say whether this will be referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, as was the case at Kilburn the previous weekend?

Mr. Jenkins: My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General has already told me that he has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to investigate whether any of those attending on Saturday were wearing uniforms within the meaning of the Act.
I note the general tribute which my hon. Friend paid to the police. He asked me in dealing with this incident to do precisely what I do not think it would be right to do, and that is, with charges pending, to attempt a detailed analysis of exactly what took place. What is without question is that the police, as a result of no initial action of their own, were placed in great difficulties on Saturday afternoon. I believe that the House would greatly regret if in present circumstances we did anything collectively to undermine the morale or the ability for cool, self-

confident judgment of those who have to make very difficult decisions.

Mr. Carlisle: I fully accept everything that the Home Secretary said about the importance of free speech and the freedom to demonstrate. Does he not agree, however, that it will be intolerable if the streets of our cities are to be turned into pitched battle grounds by Left-wing extremist groups? [Interruption.] Is it not clear from the experience of recent years that the organisers of these demonstrations must have realised the likelihood of what occurred, at least accepted the likelihood of what occurred, and are therefore wholly responsible for what occurred?

Mr. Jenkins: Of course I agree with the hon. and learned Member that what took place on Saturday is intolerable. What we must consider is how, within the limits of the law, and on the basis of our respect for freedom of speech, we may best prevent repetitions of it.
It is not, of course, the case, even if it were held to be right under, I think, Section 3 of the Public Order Act 1936 to forbid processions in a particular place or area for a particular time—and those powers are very closely circumscribed—that we could automatically prevent attempts at processions from taking place or ensure that the consequences were less bad than those we saw on Saturday.

Mr. Bidwell: Does my right hon. Friend not agree that if there is any validity in his own view that there should be extra machinery for inquiry into allegations of police malpractices—a view to which he and his predecessors subscribe—then this must be an event which begs for such an investigation if only to clear up doubts on all sides and in the interests of all the participants in last Saturday's events? [HON. MEMBERS: "Declare your interest."]. My right hon. Friend's statement about the purposes of the National Front-organised march was not entirely correct. It was basically directed towards opposing the measures concerning the Immigration Act 1971, which he has humanely changed. That was the main reason for the provocation, apart from other racist Fascist statements. Will my right hon. Friend consider strengthening Section 6 of the Race Relations Act 1965 in order to ban Fascist racist demonstrations of this kind?

Mr. Jenkins: My hon. Friend should appreciate that what is primarily at issue when demonstrations leading to violence of this sort take place, and demonstrations likely to cause a confrontation, is not the cause for which people are demonstrating, whether that may be right or wrong, but the way in which those people behave and the consequences there may be in terms of public order, loss of life and injury.
On the earlier part of the question, I do not think that this is a matter which touches in any way upon the procedure for the investigation of individual complaints against the police, which is a quite different matter. If there be a case for looking into this, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has told me that he would welcome the fullest and most independent inquiry in order to clear up the matter, to show what occurred and to make it more difficult for people to cause breaches of the peace of this sort in the future.

Mr. Heath: I join the Home Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-East (Sir K. Joseph) in expressing sympathy to the relatives of the student who died. I strongly support the Home Secretary in what he said about the police and welcome, I am sure on behalf of the whole House, the Commissioner's desire to have a full inquiry into the matter.
Will the right hon. Gentleman answer one question which seems to be at the heart of the matter? Anyone who saw that there was to be a meeting and, as the advertisement said, a counter-demonstration by these two bodies in one hall, and in the area surrounding the hall, must have recognised that there would be a high risk of violence breaking out, and that the police, doing their best to keep the factions apart, would have an intolerable burden placed upon them. Is there no way by which such a confrontation can be prevented in the future? I find it difficult to believe—the right hon. Gentleman may have information about this—that if the matter had been put to the Conway Hall authorities in that way they would not have agreed that two meetings of this kind should not take place at the same time. I believe they would have acted upon that advice.
Alternatively, if the Commissioner of Police had asked the right hon. Gentleman to use such powers as he has to prevent this coming about, whilst I agree that an attempt to prevent a march might also have led to difficulty, would it not have been less than the danger of confrontation of these two bodies in a hall and in such a small space outside? If the right hon. Gentleman requires further powers to prevent such an event in future, could he tell the House so, after consideration? I believe that another such situation would be intolerable, and we should take the powers to prevent it.

Mr. Jenkins: Those responsible for the hall were aware of the problem. They did not take action to cancel the bookings—I think that statements about this have been published—although, short of this, I believe that they wrote responsibly to both organisations, and that they made attempts which were unsuccessful, but which proved not to be central to the issue, to padlock off the one part of the hall from the other. The police arranged different routes of approach.
But I do not think that the mere denial of the small hall would necessarily have made a crucial difference, if the procession had been anxious to proceed to Red Lion Square, and to another part of it, and there to hold an open air meeting, as it did, in the vicinity of the other meeting.
The position under the Public Order Act is that the initiative is with a chief officer of police. He has traditionally always exercised it extremely sparingly and with extreme caution. Such marches and counter-marches have taken place under preceding administrations of both political colours. As the right hon. Gentleman appreciates, if people are determined to create public disorder, the mere banning of the march, saying that it will not take place, may—I emphasise "may"—create greater rather than less public disorder. But I shall certainly examine the matter, bearing in mind the need to preserve free speech, of which I think it has been generally accepted that a right to demonstrate peacefully is part.
I shall examine the matter in that context, but I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the House that if one were to make a substantial change here it would involve the Commissioner of Police, and


indirectly me, taking upon ourselves—and it would involve our successors taking upon themselves—a responsibility for announcing exactly what is a proper meeting, exactly what is a demonstration which can be permitted, which the authorities in this country have never done, and which would be very difficult to interpret in accordance with both free speech and public order.

BOMB INCIDENT (PALACE OF WESTMINSTER)

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Edward Short): Just before 8.30 this morning a bomb, which is estimated as weighing 15–20 lb., exploded near the north end of Westminster Hall. Six minutes' warning was given by a telephone call to the Press Association, and officers from New Scotland Yard were already in the precincts when the explosion took place. But the warning related to the House of Commons and was quite unspecific.
It is too early to say how much damage was done but most of it results not directly from the bomb but from a fractured gas main. Some damage was done to the Grand Committee Room in Westminster Hall and to the staff canteen. More serious damage was done to two Members' desk room and two secretaries' typing rooms in the Westminster Hall Annexe.
Unfortunately five members of the staff of the House and one fireman were injured. One of the members of the staff is being treated in hospital for a broken leg. I know that the whole House would wish me to offer her our best wishes for a speedy recovery and to express our very great sympathy with all those who were injured.
Police investigations are being continued, but it is not yet clear how the explosive device was placed in position.
I am sure that the whole House would wish me to conclude by paying a warm tribute to all those involved, and especially the firemen, for the splendid work they have done.

Mr. Heath: I thank the Leader of the House for that statement about today's explosion. I am sure that not only

Parliament but the whole country will be horrified at an explosion of that kind, which has affected our oldest and greatest hall, one so much connected with British traditions and British history.
I join the right hon. Gentleman in expressing our sympathy with the member of the staff who was hurt. It must have been an unnerving experience for all the staff who were here when the incident occurred, and we should like to express our gratitude to them for what they did, particularly the police and the firemen. I have taken the opportunity to look at the damage and have spoken to members of both services. I wholeheartedly join in the tribute the right hon. Gentleman paid to what they did on the spot.
May I add, as one of the Members who have lost all their constituency correspondence as a result of the fire, that I hope my constituents will show a certain understanding in the coming weeks if they do not receive replies to their letters or answers to invitations which they have extended.
When the inquiries which presumably are now being made are completed, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House their result with regard to the cause of the incident?
Secondly, the incident raises again the whole question of the security of the Palace of Westminster. As the House is aware, there was a complete review in the last Parliament of the circumstances and the subject we have just been discussing. There is the same conflict between the need to maintain the utmost security and at the same time to give as free movement as possible in the Palace. Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to have another review, so that we may examine again the balance of these two conflicting interests as they affect security at Westminster?

Mr. Short: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's first point, the Services Committee is meeting tomorrow. I discussed the matter this morning with its Chairman, with the Deputy Serjeant at Arms and with you, Mr. Speaker. We are agreed that the incident raises the whole question of security in the House and in the precincts. I do not think that it will ever be possible to devise a completely foolproof security system for these


premises, which are entered by about 2,000 people every day—large numbers of workmen, large numbers of temporary staff and so on. Nevertheless, we must review the whole of our security procedures, because of the incident, and that process will begin tomorrow.

Mr. Thorpe: The Leader of the House will be aware that many of us have now been able to see at first hand the courage and efficiency of the fire service and the other auxiliary services, upon which we have had to rely in this country on similar occasions very often in recent months. Is he aware that it is right that we should place on record our great gratitude to them, as well as our sympathy with those who have been injured?
I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman two questions. First, does he agree that the police investigations must essentially be of a criminal investigatory nature, and that, arising from what the Leader of the Opposition said, there is the other separate but equally important point of security?
Secondly, although this question goes somewhat wider of his statement, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, whatever may have been the objective of this lunatic measure, it should if anything strengthen the determination of the House to route out terrorism and also strengthen our resolve to see that a solution for Northern Ireland should be on the basis of fairness, and that the House will not be bombed into a decision, but will negotiate peacefully with men of peace?

Mr. Short: The investigation will certainly be of the kind the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman that if the purpose of the explosion was to intimidate the House, it will be counter-productive and will make us all the more determined to find the right solution to the problem of Ireland.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that this morning's incident and the incident which took place over the weekend will in no way detract from the general public's right of free access to this Parliament in the pursuit of legitimate purposes? Will my right hon. Friend reconsider his earlier decision not

to take the chair of the Services Committee? Is he now aware that the responsibility that that committee has for the security of this building and this Parliament demands the presence in the chair of the Lord President of the Council? Will my right hon. Friend now accept that responsibility?

Mr. Short: We have in the chair of the Services Committee one of the most senior and respected Members of the House.

Mr. Wellbeloved: That is no substitute for a Cabinet Minister.

Mr. Short: I am sure that my right hon. Friend is doing his job extremely well. There is close liaison between my right hon. Friend and myself.
I am shocked to find that many hon. Members have not yet set an example by obtaining a photographed pass. I hope very much that after this morning's incident all hon. Members will obtain a pass. Unfortunately the time is coming when the House must consider whether it should pass a resolution to ensure that all hon. Members have a pass. Apart from hon. Members, every person who works in the House is obliged to have a pass. Secretaries have photographed passes. The passes used by civil servants and workmen do not contain photographs. The question of passes is one of the security issues which the Services committee must consider urgently. I appeal once more to all hon. Members to set an example.

Mr. Cormack: When the inquiry is completed, will the right hon. Gentleman consider arranging a debate on the security of public buildings? This morning's incident should make us all concerned about every public building. Further, will he consult his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department with a view to our debating at an early stage the correct penalties for terrorism and acts of this sort?

Mr. Short: The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition has already raised the matter of a specific investigation. When I have any information I shall pass it on to the House. I am sure that my right hon. Friend has heard the hon. Gentleman's point on the wider aspect of the security of public buildings.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: I do not wish to embarrass my right hon. Friend, but does he realise how lax are our security arrangements? For example, is he aware of a situation last Thursday? I had my wife and two guests at the House. My wife took our two guests to the Crypt, going through Westminster Hall and into the Crypt, and no one was there to challenge them. I was unable to take them because of my infirmity. They walked into the Crypt and back again. My wife could have put a bomb into the Crypt quite easily. Will my right hon. Friend do something to tighten security arrangements even before the review?

Mr. Short: I am sure that my hon. Friend's wife is very well known to the police in the Palace of Westminster.

Mr. Tuck: But no one was there.

Mr. Short: Hon. Members also have some responsibility in this matter.

Mr. Rathbone: May I join my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in condemning this destructive fire? Not only did I lose all my constituency correspondence but also I lost all my political notes and papers. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will at least bring his own pressure to bear to create other amenities so that we shall be able to start again the service to constituents which has inevitably been interrupted.
Does the right hon. Gentleman join his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department in condemning all those who are only too quick to condone violence of this sort and to encourage illegal acts when it happens to suit their political ends? It is acts and circumstances such as this morning's incident which place our democracy very much in jeopardy. It is a dramatic reminder to the British people that we cannot allow the destruction of any of our freedoms by their abuse.

Mr. Short: I understand that the Deputy Chief Whip has already started to make alternative arrangements for hon. Members and secretaries who were affected by this morning's incident. There is nothing that we can do about the loss of constituency correspondence. If the hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has lost some invitations, I shall send him one or two to compensate.

Mr. Ford: Has my right hon. Friend any idea when hon. Members might be able to re-enter their rooms in Westminster Hall? Does he agree that the interests of security in this building might be served considerably by reducing the turnover of employees within it by paying realistic remuneration and by building a body of police within the Palace whose career structure would lie within the Palace rather than with the Metropolitan Police?

Mr. Short: My hon. Friend's last point is obviously not one for me, but I agree about staff remuneration, particularly as applied to the catering staff. Of course, this matter is closely linked with the way in which we pay our catering staff. At present, we have to rely heavily on casual labour in the catering department. No doubt that is one of the matters that the Services Committee will consider.

Mr. David Price: I must declare a personal interest. Like my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, I have lost all my papers and my typewriter. Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that we should not be too sorry for ourselves today? What has happened in the Palace of Westminster is what has been a daily event in Northern Ireland for the past three years.

Mr. Dalyell: Before jumping to the conclusion that this morning's incident is related to Northern Ireland; let us question whether that is to be the automatic assumption. If so, should we not ask ourselves the rather serious question whether we should jump automatically to such a conclusion?

Mr. Short: I did not jump to the conclusion. I said "if it was related to Northern Ireland", but the nature of the warning raises the presumption that it was originated by the IRA.

Mr. Money: Will the right hon. Gentleman express the thanks of those hon. Members who have their desks in the annexe of Westminster Hall to the firemen and the police for the salvage work that they have already done Further, is the right hon. Gentleman able to reassure the House about the structural position of the roof of the historic 700-year old Westminster Hall? Further, will he tell the House how soon, in the light of the savage attack on "The Adoration of the


Magi", he expects his hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts to report on the safety of works of art in general?

Mr. Short: I cannot answer the hon. Gentleman's last point. I associate myself with his first point. I am full of admiration for the work that the police and the firemen have done today. I visited the scene this morning and agree with what the hon. Gentleman said. The fact that it should happen to perhaps the most historic ceiling in Britain is a great tragedy. I do not know how long the firemen will take. I understand that there are small fires which might take quite a long time to extinguish. No doubt that will be done as quickly as possible, along with the necessary repairs.
I understand that the cinema was to have taken place tonight in the Grand Committee Room. It will now take place in Room 3A in the House of Lords.

Mr. Ashton: Will my right hon. Friend check the proximity of the underground car park to the gas mains and ensure that they are not easily accessible to people wishing to cause this sort of damage? Several hon. Members have expressed perturbation in the past two years about bringing in brief cases and the search that takes place, while lorries piled high with building materials—and many of them are from building firms of, shall we say, Irish origin—are allowed to come and go in the car park just as they please?

Mr. Short: That is the sort of matter which must be considered in the review of security. I know that the chairman of the Services Committee will have heard what my hon. Friend said.

Mr. Tugendhat: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is the first point of order that I have raised in four years. I do so with some diffidence but with a feeling of friendship towards the Chair.
We have had two statements within a week about demonstrations in the middle of London. One of those demonstrations took place in my constituency and the other just outside it. Both matters were of great concern. On both occasions I attempted to catch your eye. I think that I am right in saying that on neither occasion was there called a Conservative

Member from the central London area. I appreciate the difficulties which you have, Mr. Speaker, in maintaining a balance. None the less, I feel that these matters are of great interest to the people of central London and that Conservative Members from the area perhaps have some entitlement to be heard.

Mr. Speaker: I will bear in mind the point raised by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Arthur Latham: On a further point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to raise with you the responsibility of the Chair arising out of the exchanges which have just taken place concerning security. At the beginning of each Session, you claim certain rights and privileges for the House, and the House itself passes Sessional Orders. Two points arise. One is the freedom of access of Members to the Palace of Westminster, and the other is the right of access of a Member's constituents. Furthermore, I think that I am right in saying that this could also be a matter for the Chair in so far as the Serjeant at Arms in some respects is responsible to you.
I wish to ask whether you, as custodian of the rights of Members, will scrutinise personally any security arrangements which are likely to impinge upon those rights, and whether you will see to it that hon. Members are both consulted and informed about the arrangements and are not confronted with arbitrary decisions over which they seem to have no control and about which they have no information, to the embarrassment of themselves and their constituents.

Mr. Speaker: I think the position is clear. The Services Committee is an advisory committee to me. If action is taken on its recommendations, it must be by my authority, but I prefer that the House itself should exercise that authority. These are basically matters for the House and it is for the House to resolve what should or should not be done. But if, in an emergency, I have to take immediate decisions, I do so upon the advice of the Services Committee, if possible.

Mr. Latham: But you will inform us, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker: I or the Leader of the House will certainly inform the House of what measures have been taken.

Orders of the Day — CONSUMER CREDIT BILL [LORDS]

Order for Second Reading read.

4.12 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Prices and Consumer Protection (Mr. Alan Williams): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I was very tempted to say "I beg to move, That the Bill be read yet again", since so many hon. Members have traversed this ground on several occasions. I have a suspicion that by the end of the afternoon certain hon. Members will be regretting the fact that I am not amongst those who suffered the loss of their notes and papers in today's incident. I still have the notes of my speech.
In revising the Bill I have tried—I will not put it beyond that—to accommodate criticisms made on both sides in the Standing Committee in the last Parliament, and also to incorporate improvements where it was indicated that these could be introduced without harm to the consumer. I have had the fullest discussions with interested bodies, including, of course, the Consumers Association; they have been kept fully aware of the main changes we envisage.
From the point of view of setting the background on this side of the House, it is gratifying to note that as the previous Labour Government set up the Crowther Committee to analyse the consumer credit industry we now have the opportunity to implement the findings of its report.
I want immediately to pay tribute to hon. Members on both sides of the House who last year and earlier this year did so much work in bringing forward and scrutinising the framework of the previous Bill. This new Bill has already passed through its stages in the House of Lords. Indeed, basically it has already once passed through its stages in Committee in this House. I therefore hope that we shall, with co-operation from both sides of the House—in so far as it is meaningful to talk of sides of the House on what is, in a sense, an all-party Bill—see this

piece of legislation on the statute book by the end of July.
The basic philosophy of the Bill is well understood by most hon. Members. Fundamentally, although it is a long Bill, the essential requirement of flexibility in construction has been achieved. We are dealing with an industry which has shown considerable volatility over the last 10 years, and many new types of credit exist which did not exist at the beginning of the decade.
In preparing a legal framework, we have to devise one that is capable of dealing with the rate of change which the industry has demonstrated itself to be capable of. We want the Bill to control credit as a whole, not one particular type of credit, such as hire purchase, or just one particular class of person, such as the money lender or the pawnbroker. Similarly, we want identical protection as far as possible for all debtors.
We want to give greater equality in bargaining between the debtor and the creditor, and we believe, as did the Conservative Government, that we can achieve this greater protection and this greater equality in bargaining only by establishing greater truth in lending. Through truth in lending, we hope that we shall have open disclosure of all the terms which are involved in an agreement. We hope that this will make for true competition and will avoid some of the grosser examples that we have had of interest rates in the last few years.
Only recently The Sunday Times quoted the fact that in purchasing certain older second-hand cars today many purchasers unwittingly are paying as much as 45 per cent. interest. Radio Stoke, reporting a survey conducted by the BBC's local radio stations in Derby, Nottingham and Stoke, disclosed towards the end of last year rates of interest of up to 111 per cent. We believe that if we had truth in lending, if we had fuller disclosure, these extreme rates would not be possible.
Similarly, the Bill recognises the fact that the market in hiring is a meaningful alternative to borrowing. and, therefore, as far as one deals with the problems, facing the consumer in relation to borrowing one also has to deal with the problems in relation to hiring. Equally, we accept that ancillary activities—the activities of


brokers, debt collectors, credit reference agencies and so on—must also be brought within the framework of legal control.
Finally, we repeat the decision of the Conservative Government in saying that the laws in relation to exorbitant interest need to be strengthened. Under the present law, until the rate is over 48 per cent. the onus of proving that the rate is extortionate rests on the debtor, and for most debtors this is an extremely difficult, if not impossible, task to undertake. Therefore, as in the Conservative Government's Bill, at all levels the onus of proof that any given rate of interest is not extortionate will be vested in the lender.
We believe that in fulfilling the principles which I have outlined as underlying the Bill we shall be achieving a major breakthrough in consumer protection. I want to take this opportunity to pay a completely wholehearted tribute to all the officials—one in particular—who have been so involved, not just for months but literally for several years, in the preparation of this highly complex piece of legislation—complex because it must be complex if it is to be comprehensive. Because of its complexity, I took the unique step of inviting hon. Members opposite who I knew were likely to take part in the proceedings on the Bill to a teach-in with officials from the Department. Indeed, I extended the invitation to the Liberal Party as well Hon. Members have thus had the opportunity to discuss the details of the legislation with officials, with no Ministers present. I hope they found it helpful, sufficiently so to be able to help me when we reach Committee. I am still somewhere in the middle of the morass.
Although hon. Members may now be fully conversant with the intricacies, niceties and subtleties of this legislation following the teach-in, I have to bear in mind that for some people outside the Chamber today's proceedings, as recorded in the OFFICIAL REPORT, will be their initial guide to the intentions of the legislation. I hope, therefore, that hon. Members will excuse me if I take the opportunity of going into some detail on the provisions of the Bill.
Under Part I certain duties are given to the Director General of Fair Trading. I will deal with those in a moment. He is responsible for administering the licens

ing system and for adjudicating cases under it although there will be an appeal system. He also supervises the working of the statute, advising and informing the Secretary of State of developments. All of those functions are important if we are to have effective enforcement of the legislation and if the Secretary of State is to be able effectively to operate the powers which he has to vary the legislation.
I recognise that changing from the independent credit commissioner to the Director General of Fair Trading for this new function is a value judgment, and a closely balanced decision. My predecessor, to whose work in this respect I have always paid tribute, came down in favour of the independent commissioner. In opposition I argued in favour of the Director General carrying out these functions. I feel I owe it to the House to explain why I sought to make these changes.
When the Crowther Committee made its report and recommended the establishment of an independent credit commissioner, it did so thinking in terms of a much larger Bill going beyond consumer protection and covering lending and security, not included within the scope of this Bill. The Crowther Committee made its report before the Director General of Fair Trading existed. We felt that the Office of Fair Trading created a completely new situation in consumer protection which had to be taken into account.
As hon. Members are only too well aware from the instances they have raised here, malpractices concerning credit are very often concurrently malpractices affecting goods and their sale. It would be confusing if complaints had to be dealt with by two different offices. Not only that, it would be inefficient. Weights and measures inspectors would have to some extent to duplicate their work in putting their submissions to the credit commissioner as well as to the Director General. Further, there would be duplication of staff. We believe that there will be a modest saving, which I am sure will be applauded by all, arising from the change we have made.
There will now be 10 fewer staff required and there will be a saving of £25,000 annually. There will, however, be no reduction in the status of the person who will be undertaking the work.


He will be working within the Office of Fair Trading but the appointment will be at the same level as that originally envisaged for the independent commissioner. We may be presumptuous or optimistic but we believe that as a result of the explanations given to the groups which previously resisted such a move we shall have dispelled many, if not all, of their fears.

Mr. John Gorst: The hon. Gentleman said that the status of the person who will undertake the job which would previously have gone to the commissioner but which will now go to a person responsible to the Director General will not be changed. Surely such a person would be answerable to the Director General and consequently to that extent will be more junior than the projected commissioner.

Mr. Williams: I looked at this and I accept that it is an argument that can be put forward. Equally, in the other sense it can be said that such a person gains something from having the additional weight of the Director General to assist him. Since under the licensing provisions one of the requirements is that the responsible person has to take into account the total fitness of a person to be licensed, it seems appropriate, as the Director General is responsible for collecting information on general abuses relating to commerce—he has the best collecting machine—that all the information required to decide whether licences should be granted, varied or revoked should be held in one place.

Mr. Gorst: I welcome the changes which the Minister is making. If I gave the contrary impression I did not mean to. Does this not also imply, and if it does it would be good, that there are effectively two appeal procedures, through the Director General and through the appeal machinery which the hon. Gentleman has put into the Bill?

Mr. Williams: The appeal procedure is that which I have put in. I would not want to mislead the hon. Gentleman by suggesting that I see the system as having its own in-built appeal procedure. I will deal with the appeal procedure later because the hon. Member, like myself and the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mrs Sally Oppenheim), was concerned

that whoever was to be at the head of this body should have someone looking over his shoulder to ensure that he carried out his functions fairly.
Part II sets out the scope of the Bill. It covers credit at a personal, non-corporated level where the loans are of less than £5,000. It also covers hiring. There are various definitions of the types of transaction. We wanted the minimum number of exceptions. We therefore confined these exceptions to those areas where conformity with the Bill would be unnecessarily difficult and disproportionately expensive in relation to the gain the consumer stood to make or where protection already existed, for example, in relation to house purchase through local authorities or building societies.
The Secretary of State also has power to exempt agreements with very low rates of interest. It will be our intention to use that power. We shall be having discussions with trade and consumer bodies on the precise level at which this should be set. There are certain complications in relation to credit unions and so on which have yet to be fully discussed.
The Secretary of State also has power to exempt agreements where the payments are by a small number of instalments. Here we mean where there is a deposit and then fewer than three instalments. Clause 17 defines a small agreement as one involving an amount below £30. Conservative Members who were on the Committee will remember that we had considerable discussions about this. In Committee we varied the original Bill. Following the last Committee stage I had consultations with the Consumers Association and various trades involved.
Since coming into office I have repeated those consultations. There was agreement with the Consumers Association that, if the amendment as originally carried in Committee were to stand, the impact on the check and mail order dealers would be such that costs would be substantially increased and, therefore, the cost of credit to people borrowing low levels of credit would be unnecessarily high. There was also a danger that we might eliminate these sources of credit for people who may have no other alternative source. Since the Consumers Association shared our concern, I have accepted that we will return to the figure


of £30. I want it to be quite clear that the figure of £30 does not mean that there is an exemption from all provisions of the Bill.
As for truth in lending in advertisements, there is no exemption in the Bill. The White Paper produced by the previous administration envisaged that there might be exemptions from full disclosure on less than £10. This was to be the subject of consultation. I am still to have those consultations. It is a regulatory power which the Secretary of State will have, and in the light of those discussions we shall decide whether a £10 limit or some alternative figure should be introduced.
As for truth in lending in agreements, exemption is only for unsecured credit for goods and services. We are trying to help the mail order trade and the check traders. Disclosure of information will be required there under Clause 55. But we believe that this can be achieved on existing documents at minimum cost. There will be no exemption from these provisions for small cash loans, for secured credit purchases or for hire purchase and conditional sales.
As for the cooling off, there is no exemption, except again for less than £30 unsecured goods and services. This again is to try to help the mail order trade and the check trade and to enable them to continue in operation. This is an area of informal trade. But if there is abuse, under Clause 182 there is power to lower the limit, and I should not hesitate to do so if I found that there was abuse. Similarly, those traders in this sector will bear in mind that the Director General will take account of any abuse of the extra freedom given here in application for renewals of licences.
Part III deals with the licensing of creditors and hirers. With two exceptions which I will not go into at this stage, all will need a licence. This may be either a standard licence to a person, a partnership or a company, or it may be a group licence, so that the Director General could decide initially to issue a group licence for solicitors. It will be the duty of the Director General to establish that the applicant is a fit person to hold a credit licence. He will take into account any history of fraud, obviously, and such matters as discrimination on the grounds

of colour, race or sex. The hon. Member for Gloucester will recall the battle which she and I fought against certain of her hon. Friends in Committee who felt that discrimination on the grounds of sex was legitimate in granting credit.
I find it humiliating to think that women who are perfectly creditworthy are compelled to seek the signature of a husband or some other man before credit is available. On 9th January the Daily Telegraph quoted a case under the heading
Giving women credit where credit is due".
It spoke of an ex-Member of this House, Mrs. Patricia McLaughlin, who, incidentally, is an executive member of the Housewives Trust, and who tried to under-take a hire-purchase deal in Oxford Street. Even though she pointed out that she was in business in her own right, she was told that she was still expected to produce her husband's signature. Fortunately, she was not only persistent but knowledgeable, and eventually she managed to prevail. But for a great many women it is extremely embarrassing to have this sort of condition imposed and this sort of confrontation unnecessarily facing them when they want to undertake a normal purchase.
Under Part III, the Director General will be able to vary, suspend or revoke a licence.
We introduce new provisions for appeals in this part of the Bill. Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee were worried about the absence of an appeals procedure since it could mean for many firms that they would perhaps go out of business if licences were taken from them or were not initially granted. We have tried to accommodate that concern by giving under Clause 41 a right of appeal to the Secretary of State, and there is also a right of appeal to the High Court on a point of law under Clause 42.
Part IV regulates the conduct of creditors and hirers when seeking business. The aim is to ensure open and honest negotiations and, therefore, it tries initially to regulate advertisements. Clause 44 makes it mandatory on the Secretary of State to produce regulations on the form and content of advertisements. Even building societies, which are exempt from other parts of the Bill, must conform to these advertising regulations.
The same clause also debars the sending of circulars to minors. It may at a later stage be necessary to discuss whether certain amendments to those provisions will meet some of the worries of the industry. We think that they will.
The mass mailing of credit cards is also debarred. Hon. Members will recall the justifiable fuss that there was in October 1972 when, according to the Daily Telegraph, the Access card was sent to 3,400,000 customers. The banks have indicated that it is unlikely that such an operation will be repeated, but we cannot be sure that it could not be repeated in relation to credit cards or some similar items, and, therefore, we take powers to debar it.
Also under this part of the Bill we extend the truth in lending provisions by requiring that written quotations of terms must be provided when a deal is undertaken.
Part V protects the consumer when entering into agreements. It requires full disclosure in the prescribed manner of specified information before an agreement is made. It also introduces a cooling-off period for second mortgages. There will also be, under Clause 67 and subsequent clauses, a cooling-off period for other credit deals which are signed away from trade premises after a visit by a salesman. It will be mandatory on the Secretary of State to produce regulations on the form and content of documents.
There are certain exemptions from Part V. The first of them concerns non-commercial agreements between, say, friends, rather than the normal commercial loan, overdrafts where the Director General so determines—a matter which I know concerns the hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst)—and small agreements under £30, by which is meant unsecured loans for the purpose of goods and services but not cash loans. Cash loans will not be exempt.

Mr. A. P. Costain: There is a tendency now for people to lend charities money free of interest, so saving tax, and so on. If anyone loans even a substantial sum to a charity on an interest-free basis, are we to take it that such a transaction will not be caught by the Bill?

Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman has raised a point to which I have not directed my mind. However, I said earlier that it was our intention that arrangements whereby loans were made at a low rate of interest or below a certain rate of interest would be exempt. Therefore, my initial reaction is to say that the instance the hon. Gentleman puts forward, where there is no interest at all, will be exempt from the Bill. I will look into this. If it appears before the Committee stage that there is a problem here, I shall see whether we can accommodate the hon. Gentleman. If he has a specific instance in mind, perhaps he will let me have a written note about it as soon as possible, and I shall see what can be done, bearing in mind that the Bill will be going to a Standing Committee fairly soon.
Part VI deals with matters which can arise during the life of an agreement. Clause 75 is important because, where the supplier of goods or services has an arrangement with a supplier of credit, they are to be jointly liable for any misrepresentation or breach of the contract. Hon. Members have raised many instances of the kind of heartbreak situation which can arise from this type of abuse.
In September 1972 the Daily Mirror referred to the case of a labourer who bought a freezer for £166·87. He never had the freezer, but he was asked to pay the £166 because he had entered into a credit deal which was completely separate from the purchase. He said that one never dreamed that that kind of thing could happen in England. Unfortunately, it can happen in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It happens now, as the current edition of Which? demonstrates, because that edition refers to a lady who bought a shower from Gemini Engineering for £175. The shower never worked efficiently. When she tried to get redress for it she was told that Gemini had gone into liquidation. When she contacted the source of finance, the bankers told Mrs. Matthews that they could not be held responsible for the quality of the goods.
I am sure that hon Members on both sides will agree that it is wrong for shady, in some cases negligent or perhaps not terribly efficient, traders to be able to shelter behind often the good name of a finance house and therefore to give people


a false feeling of security because they believe they are dealing with a reputable finance house when, in fact, their main deal is with a trader of little standing. It is also right that finance houses should accept certain responsibility to check the bona fides of those whom they allow to advance credit in their names. There will be several exceptions. I will not go into too much detail because hon. Members are aware of them and I want to get through the introduction of the Bill reasonably quickly.
This part of the Bill also deals with the limit of liability where a credit card is lost and prevents a creditor, in a situation which is not all that normal but occurs frequently enough to disturb the House, seeking quicker payment upon the death of a debtor.
Part VII deals with the problems that arise as a result of default by the debtor or when the agreement is terminated. This part of the Bill creates several important new rights. First, a default notice will be required before an agreement can be terminated, before early repayment can be required, or before goods can be repossessed. This is an important system of notification.
It also repeats the new statutory right in the original Bill for a rebate of charges where there has been early completion of a credit agreement. The formula will be decided, as before, by regulation.
The right in the Hire Purchase Act 1965 to terminate and return goods if half the total cost, including credit charges, has been paid is repeated in Clauses 100 and 101.
An important new right relating to hiring is provided in Clause 102, where a break clause is built in to terminate hiring agreements after 18 months. But, as indicated in Committee and on Second Reading of the previous Bill, concern was expressed that, while helping the consumer generally, this should not become a measure which prevented small businessmen from obtaining the additional access to capital that a hiring agreement can give them. Therefore, we have tried to ensure that businesses are not adversely affected. Since coming into office I have discussed this matter with the Smaller Businesses Association Limited, and it seems happy that no problem arises at this stage.
Finally, on Part VII, when a debt is cleared the debtor can have a certificate which may help to clear up troublesome disputes about future credit worthiness.
Part VIII deals with the giving and taking of security. The basic premise is that if someone gives security and subsequently becomes responsible he should have the same protection at no more onerous terms than those which existed in the previous agreement.
The enforcement of second mortgages will be possible only on an order of the court.
Part IX deals with judicial control and makes the important point that it may be possible for the court to declare that agreement, although defective, may still be enforceable as long as it is convinced that it will not prejudice the interests of the debtor.
The provisions relating to extortionate agreements are contained in Clauses 134 to 142. I intimated earlier what was intended here. Hon. Members will know from our previous discussions what is involved.
Part X is very important because it brings in ancillary credit businesses: credit brokerage, debt-adjusting, debt-counselling, debt-collecting and the operation of a credit reference agency—the so-called black list. All these matters will be covered by the legislation. Hon. Members who took part in the previous proceedings will recollect that we were particularly concerned that, in relation to black lists, where a fault exists it should not only be remedied, but that those who had been falsely advised of the poor creditworthiness of someone who had a false record at a credit reference agency should be notified of the change. In other words, the creditworthiness should be re-established with those to whom the previous error had been notified. We shall be able to meet this requirement by regulations under Clause 149(2).
Part XI makes the Director General of Fair Trading jointly responsible with the weights and measures authorities for the enforcement of the Bill which closely follows the provisions of the Fair Trading Act.
I draw the attention of the House to Clause 182 in Part XII, which gives power to vary the financial limits of the Bill by order. The more important of the


changes can be made only by positive resolution. The negative resolution procedure will be for less important changes.
Before moving from the details of the Bill, I should like to consider the position in Scotland. Some people have suggested that there should be a separate Bill for Scotland. I do not accept that that is necessary in this instance. The Bill applies equally to England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. This decision was supported by the Law Society of Scotland.
There are good reasons why in this case a unitary Bill is suitable. After all, consumer credit is provided on a United Kingdom basis by firms operating on that basis. All citizens, regardless of the part of the United Kingdom in which they reside, should have the same protection.
Secondly, much of the teeth of the legislation will be provided subsequently via the regulations to be made by the Secretary of State, and it is essential that those regulations should be uniform and common to all parts of the country.
Thirdly, the Director General, who will be in charge of the operation of the legislation under the Fair Trading Act 1973, also operates on a United Kingdom basis. It would be anomalous if he had to administer one section of consumer credit differently from the way that he administers another.
The Scottish provisions were drafted by Scottish draftsmen—and. therefore, I can disclaim all responsibility for them—and consultations took place with various interested Scottish bodies. The anomalies between England, Wales and Scotland about the implied terms and conditions which led to the separate 1965 Act were eliminated under the Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973.
A further point about Scotland is that Scottish appeals to the Secretary of State will, in general, be held in Scotland. Similarly, appeals relating to Northern Ireland and Wales will be heard in those countries. This will be achieved not by a statutory provision but by administrative flexibility. An appeal on a point of law may be heard where the appellant has his principal place of business or where his company is registered, and, therefore, the appeal could be heard by the Court of Session in Scotland.
There is one specific problem concerning Scotland which we raised in Com

mittee and which I should like briefly to draw to the attention of the House, and that is the question of the rental purchase of a house. One way round the controls over rents in Scotland is by what appears to be the hire purchase—or rental purchase—of a house. This is all too common in many parts of Scotland, and the practice has been brought to my attention by various Scottish Labour Members. The matter is now covered by the Bill.
All too often this system applies to cheaper houses in redevelopment areas. Under the Bill, these arrangements will be subject to the protections which I am sure the House will find acceptable. The resident—or the tenant, as he should be called—will be told the cost of the credit, be able to obtain a copy of the contract, be able to avoid extortionate provisions and be entitled to rebate charges.
We hope to implement the legislation as rapidly as possible, and with that in mind it is probable that before the Bill receives the Royal Assent, we shall start advertising certain of the senior posts in the hope that people will be ready to take up their offices as soon as Parliament approves the legislation. As the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), who first introduced the Bill, intended, we shall have to introduce this measure part by part because of the difficulties of computer programming, reprinting documents, and so on, but we shall ensure that there is no unnecessary delay in its implementation.
There is no doubt that areas of difference remain. The hon. Member for Hendon, North will no doubt refer to the position of the banks. On the question of overdrafts, we think that we have to a large extent met the objections of the banks, or will do so by amendments in Committee, and I know that the hon. Gentleman will give us a chance to consider certain amendments which he will propose.
What we cannot offer to accept is the case put forward by the banks that loans other than overdrafts on current account should be exempt from the provisions of the Bill. I say that because these loans have to be separately negotiated and they are accounted for in a separate account. If we were to exempt them we should erode to a considerable extent the protection that we are providing, and that


could lead to a change in the pattern of credit granting in order to take advantage of any loopholes.

Mr. Gorst: I take it that, despite what he has just said, the Minister is still open to argument and persuasion and has not totally closed his mind.

Mr. Williams: My mind is never totally closed on matters of this sort. Where there is an area of dispute, there is always more than one point of view. I want to preserve protection for the consumer, but the last thing that I want to do is to inhibit people from taking advantage of the range of credit facilities that we have in this country. All too often it is difficult to reconcile the two needs. If the hon. Gentleman can find a reconciliation which I have failed to find I shall gladly listen to it, and if it meet) our requirements I shall accept it.

Mr. Gorst: The door is still open?

Mr. Williams: Yes, but I cannot see a great deal of light through the gap.
We have made various concessions to the mail order traders. We shall discuss their requirements in Committee, and I shall, therefore, not go into detail about that now.
Credit reference agencies are the other sector about which there is likely to be a certain amount of dispute. I know that the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) has certain points which he wishes to raise, and, in view of the respect which he commands on both sides of the House in these legal matters, I shall listen closely to what he says. I find it difficult to accept the submissions that are being put forward. All too often, if the source of information were not to be revealed it would mean that the information could not be revealed because the information itself would reveal the source. However, that is a nicety which we can consider further in Committee.
We want to provide the maximum amount of reasonable protection for the consumer, consistent with the survival of a fair and healthy credit industry, because that, too, is in the interests of the consumer. When in doubt, my inclination

so far has been to favour the consumer, and that is fundamentally the philosophy of the Bill.
I feel no loss of face in conceding a point in answer to a reasoned argument, and I repeat that I shall listen to all propositions that are put forward, but I hope that that is not inviting a mass of amendments on every issue. I shall listen to arguments on the main points of the Bill. If the case put forward is a good one I shall take the appropriate action to meet it, but I must tell the House that to date I have had fairly intensive consultations about the provisions of the Bill. I hope that on the basis of that approach, if not on the basis of the rather lengthy introduction of the Bill, we shall have a reasonable, constructive and particularly amicable Committee stage.

4.57 p.m.

Mr. Paul Channon: I do not think that I need detain the House for quite as long as the Minister did but I, too, must say how much I have been impressed by the work done by so many people over so many months in preparing this legislation.
Coming afresh to the Bill, I think that I can, on behalf of the whole House, echo the Minister's tribute to those hon. Members who gave this measure careful consideration during the previous Parliament and pay tribute in particular to the Members of the other place for their consideration of the Bill this Session. In a way, their deliberations have shortened our discussions because many of the points which would otherwise have had to be raised have been cleared up as a result of those debates and the consultations which successive Governments have undertaken with the various bodies involved.
I agree with the Minister's view about the aim of the Bill, which was first introduced by the Conservative Government. Much of the pioneering work was done by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), who was then the Minister for Trade and Consumer Affairs. To him goes the major share of the credit for the Bill, and I accept the Minister's view that the maximum protection should be afforded to the consumer, consistent with maintaining a healthy credit industry.
I thank the Minister for his courtesy to the Opposition in allowing us to discuss with his officials some of the extremely difficult technical points involved. I am grateful to the officials for the extremely courteous, helpful and efficient way in which they were kind enough to help us last week. Opposition Members have received a great deal of help, and this will have the effect of shortening the proceedings.
It is pleasant for a change to welcome a measure which commands agreement from the whole House, although of course there will be points of detail and various differences to be taken up. The Bill was introduced by the Conservative Government in the last Parliament and was fortunately revived by the present Government when they took office. We would all like to thank—alas we can no longer do so in person—Lord Crowther, and his Committee, for their great work. The Bill will do great credit to both sides of the House of Commons and to Government in general when it becomes law.
The Bill has been round the course a great deal. It has had many hours of debate and many points have been disposed of. It is extremely important to have a truth-in-lending concept, which in a way is enshrined in the Bill, and that no concealment of the cost of credit should be allowed. It is right that building societies, for example, should be included in the part of the Bill dealing with advertising. It is important that people know what commitments they are taking on and that no one should be fooled through not knowing exactly what are all the liabilities of a particular commitment and what it will cost at the time it is taken on.
I am extremely glad that the Minister is taking measures to ensure that there is no sex discrimination. I have perhaps a personal interest here as I was particularly aggrieved that I was probably the only person in the country whose wife was sent an Access card while I myself did not get one.
There are a number of changes since the Bill was last before the House. The most important is that the Director General of Fair Trading is to take over the rôle of the credit commissioner, a post which was envisaged by my right hon.

and hon. Friends when we were in power. On balance, my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself welcome this change in the Bill. We have been considering this point for some time and now that we have seen the initial operation of the Director General of Fair Trading, in particular the excellent work of the present and first occupant of the post, we think it a good idea that he should take over the rôle proposed in the Bill. I am sure that both sides of the House would at this stage wish to pay tribute to the initial work of Mr. Methven.
However, one or two questions have to be asked on how this post is to operate under the Bill. I shall make a number of points but not, I hope, at excessive length. If they cannot all be answered in this debate, they will serve to put the Government on notice regarding some of the points we shall raise in Committee.
It appears that Clause 2 of the Bill gives the Secretary of State power to give the Director General of Fair Trading general directions as to how he should carry out his functions under the Bill. That seems a perfectly reasonable and normal use of the powers which one would expect the Secretary of State to have in such a situation. However, the Secretary of State is also accorded specific functions. He can give specific direction on any matter connected with the carrying out by the Director General of his functions. That is a very wide power.
If the Director General is to be an independent person, as all hon. Members wish him to me, and to be truly independent of the Government of the day in the sense which we all envisage him to be, how can that be reconciled with the Secretary of State being able to give him
specific directions on any matter connected with the carrying out of his functions"?
We want clarification on this point. Is it necessary and, if so, what are the eventualities in which the Government think such directions would be needed? I had always assumed that the Director General would be independent in general terms although I imagine that he will make reports to the House from time to time. How will the Director General's independence be guaranteed if these powers are given to the Secretary of State?
We also need more details on how the Director General's staff will be appointed, what the size of the staff is likely to be, and when there will be a full staff so that the work can begin. I understand that the Director General's staff will be found by him through the processes of the Civil Service Commissioners. Perhaps this is a normal way of proceeding, but I want an assurance that it would in no way prejudice the independence of the staff working for the Director General either in his rôle as Director General of Fair Trading or in his new capacity as credit commissioner, a title which I think will be dropped. He will be known merely as the Director General of Fair Trading and will administer the provisions of the Fair Trading Act as well as this Bill.
It was argued in another place, somewhat perversely, that the Director General ought to have a deputy concerned with consumer trade with whom he could disagree from time to time. My right hon. and hon. Friends would not put that proposition forward, but we want to know how the Director General is to operate.
Part II of the Bill deals with a number of extremely important definitions of terms in the Bill. These terms are extremely difficult for the layman to understand, but we all greatly welcome the fact that powers are being taken to govern the seeking of business and entry into credit or hire agreements and that there will be provision for the withdraw from or cancellation of certain agreements. These proposals are absolutely right and I am sure that both sides of the House welcome this concept.
I am well aware of the exigencies of parliamentary business at present and of the need to ensure that the Bill passes into law. I am sure that the Opposition will be co-operative, as we always are. Therefore, I hope the Government will agree that the door, which may be only partially open at present, will be pushed open a little further, in the interests of speedy progress, if there are matters on which we feel strongly and on which the Government regard it as not unreasonable, to meet us. The Government are not likely to be in power for very long, but if by mischance they are in power

for a while do they have any plans to pursue what I might call Crowther Mark 2? I refer here to the recommendations of Crowther, which the Minister touched on in his opening remarks, dealing not with consumer credit but other matters. These are as equally important as those recommendations relating to consumer credit. Do the Government have any proposals regarding these other matters? When are we to see legislation framed on these points? Is there to be a White Paper? Have the Government considered how they are to proceed in this regard?
The Minister referred to the timing of regulations under the Bill. We all welcome these regulations and want to see them put into operation as soon as is reasonable. But we all recognise—I am sure that the Minister does—that the initial work on these regulations will provide a once and for all enormous burden for everybody involved in the industry affected by the Bill. The Minister gave a little information about timing of implementation, but we would like to know more about this either now or later. Let us assume that all goes well and that the Bill receives Royal Assent before the end of July. That might be cutting it a bit fine, but if there is Royal Assent in July, what will be the timetable for implementation which will presumably, have to take place in stages? How do the Government see implementation operating? Is there to be a list of events which will have to take place before the Bill comes fully into operation, and have approximate dates been set for each step of implementation to be taken? Information on this timetable would be of great interest to us and to people outside the House.
Some specific points about the Bill were raised in another place. Lord Jacques said that everyone welcomed the Bill in general but that in the end they felt that it should apply not to them but to everyone else. That is a common point of view. Nevertheless, some serious points have been raised. I was sorry to hear what the Minister said about loans on current account and the unlikelihood of his being able to meet the banks on that point.
This is all the more important because of the provisions in the Finance Bill under which, from the end of March next


year, there will be no tax relief on overdrafts but there will be relief on loans on current account for qualifying purposes, which nearly always means house purchase below £25,000. It will therefore be important for the purchaser to be able to have a loan on current account rather than an overdraft. If nothing special is done for these loans—I understand that it is not intended to do anything at present—it will not matter to the banks but it will matter to the consumer. To take the Minister's own words, it is the consumer we should consider. If the Bill is too dogmatic and rigid, we should seriously consider altering it.
Someone could easily he told that he must find a deposit of 10 per cent. immediately or lose the purchase of the house. The only quick way of doing so under the Bill is an overdraft because a loan on current account will mean all the documentation and the seven days' cooling-off period. Also, he might bank miles from his home, as nearly a third of all people do.

Mr. Alan Williams: This is a valid point. I have read the clearing banks' brief. Clause 58 provides for exemption from the cooling-off period for home loans, so we are doing nothing that will inhibit the normal processes so far as time is concerned.

Mr. Channon: I hope that that is right. Clause 58 deals with opportunity for withdrawal from prospective land mortgage. If that means buying a house, I am interested to hear it, but it is not crystal clear. If someone buying a house is exempted from the cooling-off period, that is a help, but I do not see how anyone can interpret the provision in that way. I am sure that the Minister is right, but perhaps this could be considered before the Committee stage.

Mr. Gorst: Supposing that he wants to buy something else?

Mr. Channon: That will not matter so much unless it is for a qualifying purpose, otherwise relief will not apply either to an overdraft or to a current account loan. But this would be important if the purpose were a qualifying one. If that clause covers house purchase, I am grateful, although I am surprised that the banks have not noticed the point. I hope that the door will not

be shut on loans on current account until we have fully debated those two clauses.
Another matter of concern to the banks, not surprisingly, is Clause 173 which provides that the bank can be bound by a mistaken bank statement. That struck me as being too good to be true. Speaking as someone who has never followed Polonius's advice—
Neither a borrower, nor a lender he"—
but who, practically all his adult life, has been a borrower, I thought that the the clause was designed particularly to benefit me. Do the Government intend that if a bank, by error, which can occasionally happen—it has never happened to me—sends a statement showing the customer in credit, although he knows that he is not, the bank should for ever be held to that?
The only let-out from that situation is an extraordinary one. Under Clause 169, in proceedings under the Bill, the person charged has a defence. I am told that the defence offered to the banks, that they took all reasonable precautions, is worthless. No doubt the Under-Secretary can give us the lawyers' views on that. I am told that if a slip is made it ipso facto means that the bank could not have taken all reasonable precautions and that therefore that defence is no defence at all. If that is so, it perhaps goes a little too far in the defence of the consumer. With the best will in the world, when about a billion items are cleared every year by the banks, there must be one or two mistakes. No one wants them to happen and if anyone is misled, the law offers a reasonable protection at the moment. Perhaps this matter can be looked at in committee.
A point with which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) will want to deal in more detail is that raised by some of the credit reference agencies about the information that they give about business, consumer and trade credit. They argue—the Minister will know the business to which I am referring—that business and trade credit is completely different from consumer credit. It is substantially a matter of trust that credit givers have a right to know as much as is reasonable about a customer's circumstances and background, and whether he has a good business record.
It is argued that in other legislation along these lines there has never been any attempt to secure reporting of this kind of credit. I am told that in Canada legislation to regulate the gathering of credit information specifically excludes this type. This applies in practically every province—certainly in Saskatchewan Quebec, Manitoba, Newfoundland, Ontario and British Columbia. Perhaps there is legislation in other parts of the world without this exemption, but it seems reasonable.
It is argued with some force that the Bill will mean that the two big reputable credit reference agencies will have to give not only their information about the people concerned but also their sources. It will therefore be extraordinarily difficult for people to give such information and it might make it more rather than less difficult for people to get credit. Up to now, if anyone has reported that someone's credit is good, that person has been likely to get credit. This provision is more likely to hit than to benefit the small trader. Perhaps this, too, could be considered before Committee.
A similar point is raised by the National Federation of Trade Protection Societies, who I hope have been in contact with the Department. That organisation is particularly worried because it is a group of mutual societies, all of whose members are bound not to reveal the information they receive to anyone outside the society. They are frightened that they will lose all their mutual status if the Bill is not amended, which they say can be done quite simply. I do not expect an answer tonight, but it would save time if this, too, could be considered before the Committee stage.
There are many more detailed points not normally appropriate to Second Reading, but in today's special circumstances perhaps I might mention one more. It relates to Clause 57. All of us agreed that it was wrong to have the mass circulation of credit cards that took place 18 months ago. No one wants that exercise to be repeated. It is quite right that powers should be taken in that respect. On the other hand renewal for those who have taken up credit cards will be very difficult under Clause 51 if it is not amended. The credit card com

pany may well not know who has taken up the credit, because one takes it up if one has signed the document even if one never makes use of it. Unless the companies circularise 3½ million people, they will not know whether they are allowed to send them the renewal. I should have thought that something might be done to make this a law in the future, but perhaps not to insist on its being applied retrospectively, as it were, to credit cards which are already in operation. That is a small point, but I should be grateful if consideration could be given to it.
The Bill is welcomed on both sides of the House. As I have said, it was my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East who introduced its predecessor last November. That Bill had its Committee stage, and it was one of the minor tragedies of the General Election in February that it did not pass into law.
However, we are grateful that the Government have reintroduced this Conservative measure. It has not been amended very much. We welcome most of the changes. There are some points of detail to be considered, but, in general, we welcome the Bill very much and we wish to co-operate with its passage through Parliament. We believe that it is in the interests of the consumer and that it will help a great many people in the future. This reform is long overdue. Certainly we on the Opposition side of the House do not wish to delay it but support its passage with enthusiasm.

5.21 p.m.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: The Minister of State said that the Bill was extremely complex. When I was a Minister I always noted that the attendance at any debate in the House by those willing to take part was usually in direct converse proportion to the complexity of the Bill under debate. The few hon. Members present this afternoon may confirm the complexity of the Bill.
I propose to be brief and to speak merely about one aspect of the Bill. The clause with which I want to deal has grown. When the previous Bill was introduced it was Clause 133. At one stage the clause number was in the 150s. In the present Bill it has now got as far


as being Clause 160. Again, that is evidence of the complexity and the growing nature of the Bill.
In general, and before coming to Clause 160, may I say that, like my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon), I welcome the Bill. It was a substantial achievement for my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe) and the pressure that he brought for the introduction of the Bill during the previous administration. The present Bill will be of value to the public as a whole.
Referring to Clause 160, I am, to a degree, encouraged by the comments of the Minister, who said that he saw no loss of face in conceding a good point. I hope that he will feel that my few remarks will strengthen him in reconsidering the position under the clause.
My point is whether the provisions dealing with the rights of an individual to have access to any file kept about him by a credit reference agency—a proposal which I applaud and which was recommended by the Younger Committee on Privacy—should apply to what are known as retail credit agencies or consumer credit agencies. The question is whether they should also apply—as the Bill applies them—to commercial credit reporting agencies, that is, agencies which are reporting not on the creditworthiness of an individual but on that of a commercial undertaking. There is a strong case for saying that a distinction should be made.
I have been approached about this matter—it was not a form of financial approach or interest—and an argument has been put to me by the Manchester Guardian Society for the Protection of Trade. That society is extremely concerned about the effect on its business should the Bill pass into law in its present form. The society has existed for 147 years. It is a mutual, non-profit-making society. It exists to provide a service which it believes to be important. It is a service which has over the years, since the society's incorporation, become an even more important service—namely, that of providing reliable information about the creditworthiness of commercial undertakings. The fact that the society is providing a valuable service is recognised by trade and industry. That is clear from the fact that it has 10,000 members and

receives about 600 inquiries daily. The Minister of State will accept the thoroughly reputable nature of the Manchester Guardian Society for the Protection of Trade.
Under the provisions in the Bill—if I read them correctly—as a result of Clauses 147 to 149, this society will have to be licensed. It welcomes that. In itself, that licensing is a protection to ensure that people who are not fit and proper people are not involved in these matters.
The provisions of Clause 160 allow an individual to obtain the whole file on himself that is kept by any credit rating agency. That provision relates to individuals. But commercial credit bureaux are providing creditworthiness reports on companies, and to that extent they are excluded from the effects of these provisions because those corporate bodies are not individuals under the clause. Presumably the clause was drafted in its present form because those drafting the Bill and those advising the Minister believed that it was right in relation to credit references made on the creditworthiness of companies that the companies should not need the same sort of access to that information as an individual should have to any comments made about him. Therefore, the Bill does not require files to be presented to commercial companies on which credit ratings are held.
Unfortunately, however, as I understand it, 30 per cent. of the work undertaken by the Manchester Guardian Society for the Protection of Trade is not in relation to corporate bodies as such but to non-corporate bodies—presumably either partnerships or individuals trading under firm names. The fear is that if under the provisions of the Bill those people are to be entitled to see not only what the Manchester society is saying about them in a statement of fact but also the whole file upon them, the sources of information upon which that service depends will dry up. As I have said, it is a service which provides something of value in the commercial world because it is a service which people believe helps to reduce the potentiality of fraud. The Manchester society believes that this service will no longer be provided if as a result of the Bill their sources of information dry up, as they fear.
I know that the Minister of State will not wish to do anything to encourage fradulent enterprise. He will know of the concern which exists about the potential for fraud in business—the type of thing still known as long-firm fraud, or the individual who sets up as a firm purely to obtain credit, with the clear and open intention of selling the goods and getting out before those who have given him credit can catch up with him.
The existence of societies such as the Manchester Guardian Society can help to prevent such bogus businesses. Such societies are the one focal point to which retailers' suppliers can write and inquire about the creditworthiness of a new firm. By such means retailers can smell that something is wrong and warn other companies before too much credit is granted to the suspect firm.
I understand that there are in all about 40 agencies which work in commercial credit, of which 28 are non-profit making. I gather that most of these agencies are concerned mainly with consumer credit but that they do a small amount of commercial credit rating as well. Some, such as the Manchester Guardian Society, deal only in granting commercial references and will refuse to give, even to a member, a reference about an individual rather than about a trading concern. One has to be a member to get a reference and these agencies will give references only to trade creditors.
These agencies are clear that, if the Minister will meet them on this point, they can decline—they do decline, and they will decline—to give any information about a non-corporate individual unless the inquirer is prepared to state the nature of the inquiry and to show that what is involved is the trade the individual is carrying on and not the individual's personal life.
The Minister will know that such agencies draw their information from a wide range of sources. I ask the Minister of State to say that a distinction can be made and should properly be made between agencies dealing in what is generally called retail consumer credit and those such as the Manchester Guardian Society which deal purely in commercial credit references.
The basis on which I ask the Minister of State to say that in principle a distinc

tion can and should be made—I believe that it would be a valid distinction—is that, in approaching any legislation of this nature, the Minister should balance the evil which the legislation attempts to rectify against the possibility that carrying the legislation will provide greater opportunities for other types of fraud to take place.
The balance comes down clearly on the side of allowing individuals to know exactly what is said about them and who is saying it. I appreciate that the Younger Committee recommended that this should cover business agencies as well, but it is noticeable that this recommendation was within the context of a report about the invasion of privacy. The very question which was asked—"Would you consider that your privacy was invaded if you were asked a question about your creditworthiness when buying a washing machine?"—shows that it was that aspect of credit agency work with which the Young Committee was concerned. Although the Younger Committee took oral evidence from the British Debt Society, it did not approach any of the bodies concerned with the commercial side of credit references.
The risk of fraud on a large scale is not great when one is dealing with the desire of an individual to have a washing machine, for instance. But there is a substantial risk of harm to the individual from wrong information filed, as I gather it often is, under the individual's home address—on the address of the house—rather than on the name of the occupant. It is also an interference with his privacy.
In the commercial world the opposite conclusions apply. The risk of potential fraud by drying up such sources of information are far greater and far outweigh the danger that could exist and far outweigh any question of the invasion of privacy of a person who is carrying on a business enterprise. If a business person attempts to obtain credit on a substantial basis, it is not unreasonable that those whom he asks to give him credit should seek to check up on his references. It is necessary for them to do so in an effort to prevent fraud. If such checking up is to be of value in the commercial world it should be possible to do it in circumstances of complete confidentiality.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West said, the service is also


of advantage to an honest firm starting in business. It is useful for such a firm to know that there is an utterly reliable group from which it can inquire as to the creditworthiness of a person seeking credit from it. It means that an honest firm just setting up in business is much more liable to grant credit than it would be if it could not obtain such information.
As these agencies have made clear to the Minister, they are not unwilling to disclose the contents of any written report, but they are worried about disclosing their sources of information. I do not know whether it is for either the Minister or I to judge whether they are right in saying that the fact that they had to disclose their sources of information would dry up their sources of information. Clearly they sincerely believe that that will be the effect of this legislation.
If that means that such societies will cease to be able to provide the service which they have provided in the commercial world over the last 100 to 150 years, there will be a greater potentiality for a fraudulent, bogus business to get going before it is discovered and there will be a great reluctance on the part of some firms to give credit to newly-formed unincorporated bodies, because they will not have the opportunity of adequately checking on them.
It is noticeable that in the various pieces of legislation in the different provinces of Canada this factor is recognised by specifically excluding commercial credit agencies from these provisions. It could be done in two ways. In Saskatchewan and Newfoundland it is done by providing that the Act does not apply to a credit reporting agency where the agency's reports deal only with industrial and commercial enterprises and are distributed only to such enterprises. In British Columbia and Ontario it is done by defining the consumer as a natural person, but that definition does not include a person engaging in a transaction other than seeking employment in the course of carrying on a business.
I ask the Minister to look at this point again before the Bill becomes law. I know that it is not a new point and that it has been raised before. I know. too, that the Minister has been good enough to have meetings with the various parties involved, and that since those meetings a senior civil servant from the

Minister's Department has been to the Manchester Guardian Society to see how the system works. No doubt from that visit he is far better informed than I or any other hon. Member could be.
The whole purpose of societies or bodies such as the Manchester Guardian Society for the Protection of Trade is to promote trade in this country and abroad by establishing confidence between suppliers and consumers, and it would be a great pity if the Bill, the purpose of which is approved by all hon. Members in as much as it deals with the consumer credit agency as such, should by a misfortune do harm to a valuable service to industry and commerce by going into a wider sphere than is necessary. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will consider excluding the commercial credit rating agencies from the effects of the clause.

5.43 p.m.

Mr. John Gorst: I welcome the return of the Bill, which fell for reasons of which we are all well aware, and I hope that it will not suffer the same fate a second time. I particularly welcome it in its revised form. Many of the revisions would no doubt have been made if the Report stage had taken place sooner the first time around. I welcome especially the fact that the commissioner has now been replaced by the Director General of Fair Trading, and we are of course glad to see that the appeals procedure is included, as has been promised had the Bill proceeded the first time.
Many of the changes which were promised for Report stage on the first Bill are to be found here, although I am a little dubious about one in particular. which the Minister and I discussed before and which I remember describing as the "KGB clause". The Minister, speaking then from the Opposition side, said
There is a serious danger of a massive intrusion into individual privacy in the clause as it is drafted."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee D; 5th February 1974, c. 618.]
He was referring to Clause 163 which deals with right of entry, the seizure of documents, and so on.
I also recall that my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), who was then the Minister of Aerospace and Shipping, gave an undertaking that he would take another look at this issue. It is not apparent to me that the clause


although slightly changed in another respect, curtails these excessive powers. I have no doubt that we can come back to this point in Committee, but I invite the Minister to have a look at it between now and then and to give us a reassurance.
I part company with some of my hon. Friends and with the Minister, as will be no surprise to him, on the question of sex discrimination. One of the things that bothered us in Standing Committee on the previous occasion was that while it was entirely acceptable in principle that there should be no sex discrimination, there is some fallout from the change. A husband is still liable for the debts of his wife—

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: Hear, hear.

Mr. Gorst: I know I can speak with complete assurance in saying that my wife has no intention of being responsible for my debts. There is not, therefore, total equality in this respect and there will not be until we change the legal provisions.

Mrs. Oppenheim: Mrs. Oppenheim indicated dissent.

Mr. Gorst: I appreciate the depth of feeling of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Oppenheim) as she shakes her head with great vigour, but this is a point which needs to be considered.
I turn to the principles of the Bill, as enunciated by the Minister in another place when he moved the Second Reading. I have some concern about an emphasis which crept into his speech which I do not recall being present in discussion on the first Bill. The noble Lord said that it was usually the practice in legislation to find a nail and then hit it. He said of this particular piece of legislation,
The first new principle of this Bill is that it is directed not at a class of persons or a type of activity but at an activity as a whole.… Persons who wish to deal in this activity will be covered by the measure, no matter what type of credit they are providing."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 9th April 1974; Vol. 350, c. 1149.]
With particular reference to the points made about credit references agencies, one of the shortcomings of that approach

is that all the transactions are treated as bath water and several babies will be made to suffer as a consequence.
It is important that we should treat everything more on merit, even if that conflicts slightly with the principle, with the all-embracing attempt to leave nothing out. I noticed that particularly in what the noble Lord said about pawnbrokers, money lenders and banks all being treated alike. This crops up in the clauses relating to the clearing banks. Obviously we shall need further discussion about loans on current accounts in which there is a fluctuating day-by-day rate of interest. It is not comparing like with like to draw a line here without regard to whether we are drawing invidious comparisons and creating unacceptable anomalies—unacceptable not only from the point of view of tidyness or fairness but also from the point of view of the consumer's interest, irrespective of what may also be in the interest of the clearing banks.
There still remain certain minor but significant anomalies which were argued at an earlier stage and which still remain to be argued. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) has mentioned, and the Minister clearly anticipates problems on the clearing banks on the subject of loans on current account, repayment on demand and mistakes in bank statements. But of course there are problems of the credit reference agencies. Small anomalies have also been brought to our attention by the Finance Houses Association and the Equipment Leasing Association, particularly on the question of consumer hire agreements, and no doubt we shall be dealing with that when we reach Clause 15. There is also the Access and Barclaycard problem.
Finally, there is a small anomaly which has been brought to my attention by the Business Equipment Trade Association, in which I declare an interest, with regard to the right in Clause 102 to terminate hire agreements. The difficulty relates to the starting date for an agreement. Under the Bill as it stands, 18 months after an agreement has been signed it will be open to someone to terminate it. But people acquiring business equipment, such as an internal telephone installation, may have to wait six months before it is installed. It is only when it is installed and working that payments will start.


That leaves only 12 months for the supplier to recoup its cost. It is suggested that the Minister should consider a slight amendment to enable the date of signing or the date of installation of the equipment, whichever is later, to be the starting date. Those are small points, but they are no doubt of great significance to the people concerned. I hope that the Minister will consider them sympathetically.
With those reservations, I am sure I can say that we are all delighted that the Bill has received the priority the Government have given it. We wish it a speedy passage through the House, and early implementation.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Dodsworth: I first declare a number of interests in a narrow part of the Bill. I am a director of a merchant bank, and because of that I am managing director of many leasing companies of various forms and size. Last but not least, I am Vice-Chairman of the Equipment Leasing Association, and I am aware of some of the discussions and consultations that have been taking place over an extended period.
First, I should like to say how much the industry appreciates the constructive nature of the discussions. They have constituted a rewarding dialogue which has been helpful in producing a better understanding of the leasing industry and its problems. It is interesting that the industry was brought into this form of legislation almost by accident. By definition, leasing is more a commercial and industrial activity. The association was concerned to see that that should be clearly understood by those drafting the legislation.
Throughout the world leasing is going through a time of examination and reconsideration. I know from my discussions in various European countries that consideration is being given there to the way in which leasing should be controlled and monitored in the best interests of commerce, industry and the consumer. I recently discovered in Brazil that the Brazilians had been trying to produce leasing legislation for four years so that they could have a leasing industry at all.
What I am concerned about is that we should not have control and regula

tion by accident. For example, a number of the articles regulating consumer credit in Europe apply to leasing. We should clearly understand the effect of the drafting of some of those articles.
The association and I clearly understood that there was a need for some partnerships and private individuals to be protected in their dealings on rental agreements. The association is happy that as a result of the consultation a satisfactory form of protection has been found.
We should understand what leasing is. It seems to our association that the essence of leasing is customer choice, which separates ownership from use. If we can achieve that definition in the final form of the Bill, that will be helpful in understanding its application and it will be a better protection for people who deal with the leasing industry.
Leasing is a commercial activity, not a consumer consumption activity. Therefore, we feel that the purposes of the Bill may be best served if a lease is defined as a hiring agreement where the goods are selected by the lessee before they are bought by the lessor, the lessor had no necessary connection with the supplier, and the goods are to be used in the business of the lessee. Although this is a narrow point, we are concerned to see that there is a clear understanding of the form of the lease compared with the hire purchase or rental agreement.
For example, we believe that the words in Clause 15,
capable of not exceeding £5,000
would be better related to the cash price than the total value of the agreement or contract. I should like to give two or three illustrations of the difficulties caused by the present definition. I understand that it is likely to be an outset definition, relating to the outset of the contract. There would then be difficulty over a motor car lease, for example, containing a mileage clause, because it would not necessarily be capable of exact definition at the outset, and there would be a disparity of treatment, dependent on the use of the vehicle. It would be only at the end of a leasing that one would know its true size.
There are also leasing agreements with a corporation tax variation clause, allowing for different rates of the tax. It


would therefore be more helpful if the definition of size related to the cash price rather than to the total value of the contract.
Thirdly, there are examples of the purchase of an asset by a lessor taking account of various grants. As I understand it, we are likely to have a disparity of treatment between an asset used and purchased outside a development area and one purchased or used inside a development area. That disparity would be overcome by referring to the cash price of the goods.
If those difficulties can be overcome, the industry would say that it is more than appreciative of the consideration and thought which have been given to the drafting of the Bill in its present form over an extended period. The industry looks forward to the consideration of amendments which we think might be helpful, particularly amendments to Clause 16.

5.58 p.m.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I had hoped to be able to say that the Bill had been universally commended by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Unfortunately, we have not heard from any back-bench Labour Member, so I can say only that t has been unanimously welcomed by my hon. Friends, as it was when the former version was introduced by the previous Conservative Government.
This is a young Bill with a long history, a Bill that already owes a great deal to its heritage. I cannot imagine that many Bills which received so much consideration in advance can have come before the House for a Second Reading.
While I am on the subject of the heritage of the Bill, I should like to be associated with the tribute that has been paid to the late Lord Crowther. I am sure that the House would want to pay a tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), the former Minister of Trade and Consumer Affairs, for the part which he played in the first incarnation of this measure.
The Bill comes to us after its former version had a long and constructive

period in Committee. I think that I may say that it was all the more constructive because the atmosphere of the Committee was largely non-political and amicable—so much so that on one occasion I remember the Minister commending one of my amendments in preference to his own. On another occasion I remember being so seduced by the argument put forward by the Labour Opposition that I was prepared to vote with them had their argument been resisted. Happily, those matters have since been incorporated in the Bill, which has been substantially improved as a consequence of our debates in Committee and the assurances then given. More recently the Bill has had close study in another place and has benefited from a great deal of expert consideration.
The use of credit has become increasingly important in our society. Therefore, the rules that govern it must be fair and just. In many ways the problems in the realms of consumer credit have multiplied, intensified and become more diverse. The need for legislation is acute and the Bill is necessarily long and complex.
It is substantially an understatement to say that in many ways the complexity of the Bill and the complexity of the whole matter of consumer credit was brought home to many hon. Members, including myself, during the Committee stage of the previous Bill. It is perhaps the very best advocate of the need to guide consumers through the credit jungle and protect them on their way that we are dealing with such a long and complex measure. It has remained a reasonably faithful if an updated version of the Crowther recommendations. It deals with the problems in a comprehensive way and to a great extent it maintains a felicitous balance between users and lenders of credit.
I welcome the fact that the administration of the Bill will be in the hands of the Director General of Fair Trading, who has impressed all those who are keenly interested in consumer affairs with his capability and enthusiasm. There is a great deal in the Bill that is worthy of special comment and acclaim, but I shall not attempt to deal in detail with all its aspects. Nor shall I weary the House with examples indicating the need for


legislation. Most hon. Members have been aware of that need as a result of the unfortunate experiences of their constituents. None the less, it is important to stress that the success and effectiveness of the Bill will depend largely on the nature of the regulations which are implemented, so that the fundamental principle underlying Crowther and the Bill—"truth in lending"—is fully exploited. I believe that the most significant manifestation of that principle will come in initial credit advertising and in the display of notices and catalogues.
It is crucial that the information which will have to be supplied by statutory disclosure is supplied in as effective a way as possible in informing consumers about the cost of credit and the terms and conditions to be imposed. Unfortunately, there are still a great many misleading credit advertisements. All too often the vital information is given, if at all, in tiny print at the bottom of the advertisement.
Once again, the Bill is faithful to the high priority that Crowther gave to the need for standard consistent formulae in the presentation of information. I fear, however, that the formulae that we discussed in Committee will prove too complicated for the average consumer, in which category I include myself. The information that consumers will want most despite the amount of other information that we may attempt to give them, is the cash cost of credit. That will be more readily understood by most consumers if, for example, Mr. and Mrs. Jones go to buy a washing machine on what is often genteelly described as deferred terms. What they will need to know, and in a way that they can assimilate easily, is how much more the washing machine will cost them to buy on deferred terms rather than to pay for in cash across the counter, the number of instalments, the amount of each instalment, the period of repayment, the total capital cost in cash terms and the penalties for early or late repayment. That is equally true for second mortgages and other credit transactions.
I do not in any way underrate the importance of the other information which will have to be provided, but I maintain that it will be the cash cost that will mean a great deal more to consumers

than any amount of information about rates of interest. I hope that due prominence can be given to that aspect of the information which will be provided under the statutory provisions. The presentation of all information will be especially important, as will its prominence in relation to advertisements, notices, catalogues or in the agreements themselves.
Equally important is enforcement. I hope that the Minister will be able to tell us that he is satisfied that the trading standards offices are adequately staffed to deal with these matters, on top of the extra burden of work that they will have to carry as a result of the Prices Bill. As this information is to be collected centrally in his Department, I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some precise detail. It is no good legislating for consumers if we are unable to enforce the legislation.
I am still slightly concerned about some of the misleading and unfair billing practices which I hope will be dealt with under the relevant clauses. I refer in particular to a recent Barclaycard specimen statement which is called the "new-look" Barclaycard monthly statement. I am an optimist. The line which my optimism takes is to consider that I owe rather less money than in actual fact I owe, and that I am about to be paid more money than I actually am paid. I understand that this is a common delusion and a common form of optimism. I notice that I have a particular tendency to employ it in financial matters with my husband. However, it applies to other financial undertakings. The feelings of people like me can be imagined when they receive a specimen Barclaycard statement which says:
Present balance £194.97. Credit limit £300. You need pay only £29.
I am sure that that is extremely misleading and that someone of my optimistic nature would think that was a new form of accounting and late-crediting.
I know it is not the intention of Barclaycard to draw unsuspecting and unwilling consumers into credit transactions in which they had no intention of taking part. I think that the phrase could be amended to read, "You need pay only £29 if you wish to avail yourself of our credit facilities." That would clarify the matter. I hope that Barclaycard will amend the statement itself.
Apart from the practice of the unsolicited mailing of credit cards, which I deplore, I think that credit cards provide one of the cheapest forms of credit that can be found in Britain if effectively used, if payments are made promptly and if credit facilities are used for short periods only. I do not think that unfair billing practices are dealt with anywhere in the Bill, yet we must all have had the experience of constituents who are pressed for payment of accounts that have already been paid, who have received a number of harassing letters and who have written back on more than one occasion to say that the account has been paid.
I know that on most occasions it is the fault of the computer, but as the computer presumably does not answer the letters from people who say that they have already paid, it seems that errors are perpetrated because letters are not answered or not dealt with adequately.
It would not be right for me to let this occasion pass without welcoming the fact that the Bill, like its predecessor, will do away with discrimination against women—

Mr. Channon: And against men.

Mrs. Oppenheim: —and against race and religion in the realm of credit. All too often in the past this discrimination has been levelled unjustifiably against perhaps the most vulnerable group of women—women alone, single women, deserted and divorced wives, one-parent families—and, despite what my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) says, I hope that the Director-General will be harsh with any contravention of this requirement.
I also welcome a minor amendment to Clause 4, where the rather tentative "may" has been replaced by the more positive "shall" in relation to the Director General's requirement to disseminate information and advice to the consumer. If we need to inform consumers about the cost of credit, we need to educate them in its use. I am not sure whether the options in the clause are not still a little too wide, but we can deal with that aspect later.
I shall not detain the House by dealing in detail with other aspects of the Bill, which has been improved. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, West

(Mr. Channon) and the Minister of State have done that adequately. We shall want to look at the Bill closely again in Committee and possibly to amend it further.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) raised a very wide and important point about consumer credit reporting. I hope that the Minister of State will look at this with the open mind that he assured us he has. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon, North made a point which we have raised before—about consumer hire agreements—which is equally valid and reasonable. We were delighted to hear the expert contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth), and we look forward to his contributions, we hope, in Committee. We hope to be guided by his expertise in these matters.
This Bill has been, and was in its first incarnation, widely welcomed by consumer organisations throughout the country. It was welcomed in this House and in another place. I believe that it is potentially an extremely valuable measure for the consumer. It should do a great deal to banish the image of the usurious moneylender which all too often has been justifiably applied in the past. Like all good consumer legislation, it could have the effect of raising standards in the case of those on both sides of credit transactions, and it should add significantly to the growing number of consumer protection measures of which we in this country can be very proud.

6.13 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection (Mr. Robert Maclennan): This has been a most interesting and valuable debate in which a great many detailed questions have been asked. It will not be expected of me to reply to all of them now—indeed, the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) said that he would be happy to have some of the points he raised considered so that we could be armed to deal with them properly in Committee—but I shall do my best to reply as fully as I can to some of the points which have been made.
Inevitably, in a complex measure of this sort, which is, substantially, before the House of Commons for the second time, a number of hon. Members have


developed considerable expertise in the matter. As I did not have the benefit of taking in some of the earlier discussions I recognise my own limitations.
I think that the debate has demonstrated that there is a general desire to get the Bill on to the statute book as soon as possible, so that the necessary work to make it effective can begin as soon as possible. Therefore, I am heartened by the general welcome which the Bill has had on its arrival from another place, where it was amended. I think that it is generally agreed that it is in an improved form. I trust that this augurs well for its speedy passage through its remaining stages.
A number of hon. Members have emphasised that the Bill is of great importance in extending the protection of the consumer in all types of credit transaction. At the same time, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Bill will confer great benefits on sections of the credit industry by freeing it from outmoded restrictions such as those contained in the Moneylenders and Pawnbrokers Acts.
However, at this stage it is inevitable that the attention of those concerned in the industry should tend to be concentrated on the restrictions which will follow from putting all consumer lending on substantially the same statutory basis. These restrictions will mean that many consumer credit businesses will have to make wide-ranging alterations in their procedures. In some cases, some people may say, "Not before time", but in the vast majority of cases I believe that the need to alter old methods of doing things will not be so immediately apparent. This is part of the price to be paid for ensuring that the consumer always gets a square deal and can make ready comparisons between one source of credit and another.
Where it is shown that these changes will impose an unreasonably onerous burden on creditors, to the ultimate disadvantage of consumers, we, like the Conservative Government who introduced the original Bill, are ready, as my hon. Friend has said, to see what can be done to amend it. We have already, I think, demonstrated this in the extensive consultations that took place before the Bill was introduced and continued during the passage of the Bill in another place.
But we are ready to make amendments only where this can be done without weakening the protection afforded by the Bill to the consumer, and we are not ready to depart from the general principle that any exemptions under the Bill must be made on the basis of the type of credit business being engaged in, and must not be made on an institutional basis.
I come now to one or two specific points raised in the debate. The hon. Member for Southend, West, speaking of the provisions of Clause 2(2), asked what was the justification of the provision empowering the Secretary of State to issue specific instructions to the Director General. No doubt the subject will be returned to in Committee. I shall simply say now that these directions can cover such matters as the form of his accounts and other aspects of his administrative functions. The power does not, however, apply to his licensing decisions, because the direction-making power does not apply to determinations against which there is an appeal to the Secretary of State.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the appointment of staff and how quickly we were seeking to set up the procedures under the Bill. It is our hope that two top posts will be advertised within the next few weeks, and other staff will be appointed by the Civil Service Department as civil servants in the way usual for civil servants. On the question of organisation, I cannot fully comply with the hon. Gentleman's request that we should set out a table of structure, but the organisation of the Office of Fair Trading provides that, under the Director General, there will be a new consumer credit division headed by a director.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the timing of various parts of the Bill. Here again, we hope to proceed as quickly as possible. Subject to consultations, it is our hope that the advertising provisions will be in force within a few months of the Royal Assent. We hope, too, that the content and supply provisions set out in Part V will be in force within a year.
We have it in mind that that part of the Bill relating to licensing can perhaps be in force in two years. We recognise that there may be difficulties which cannot be foreseen now and which would


require consultation to iron out. It would be unwise to give firm commitments about dates now. However, we recognise the desirability of proceeding with as much speed as possible.
One question raised by a number of hon. Members today, principally by the hon. Member for Southend, West, concerned bank overdrafts and loan accounts. These remain subject to the Bill, first because the Crowther Committee's concept of exemption of such business below a minimum rate of charge of Bank Rate plus 2½ per cent. was not practicable, since the margin above Bank—or base—Rate would have had to be much higher to cover interest and other charges in the total charge for credit, which would have meant too much other lending, intended to be caught by the Bill, would then also have been exempted; and, secondly, because exemption of overdrafts provided by some lenders only, such as joint stock banks, would be against a basic principle of the Bill and would have been justifiably resented by other financial institutions that provide overdrafts.
But the provisions of the Bill have been amended to meet the objection that the documentation and other requirements in the Bill would adversely affect the flexibility of the overdraft system. Provision has been made in Clause 74 for the Director General of Fair Trading to make determinations exempting overdrafts on current accounts from the documentation provisions where he considers that this is not against the interest of debtors. This possible exemption will apply to all overdrafts, not just those granted by the joint stock banks. Provision has also been made for the Director General to make determinations under Clause 49 excluding certain current accounts from the ban on canvassing off trade premises. So now bank managers can continue to have reasonable flexibility in discussing lending facilities with their customers in semi-social surroundings.
These exemptions will apply to overdrafts for the reasons I have stated.
Loan accounts are in a different position, since they are separate accounts used for credit drawings but not used for current account daily business, although they are granted only to current account holders and are often linked to

drawing on the current account. Loan accounts do not, therefore, have the same need for flexibility as do current accounts, and differ little from personal loans, to which the banks accept that the Bill should apply. Any exemption, even if limited to exclusion from the documentation provisions, would have to apply to all creditors and would leave a loophole to be exploited by the unscrupulous. Loan accounts accordingly remain fully subject to the Bill.

Mr. Channon: I am not quite sure why the hon. Gentleman says that there would be loopholes open to the unscruplous. If he were to make the same restriction under Clause 74 for loan accounts as for overdrafts the Director General would have ample powers to make sure that that did not occur.

Mr. Maclennan: I would prefer to return to that point in Committee, because it is complex. I know that there is considerable interest in it. I feel certain that we shall have to come back to it.
It has been argued that the terms governing loan accounts—I think it was the hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Dodsworth) who made this point—interest calculated on a daily basis on the amount outstanding and payable at least quarterly in arrears, and with the debtor having the right to reduce the loan without notice, make loan accounts more akin to overdrafts than personal loans. But such terms might be granted by any of the large number of lenders holding current accounts in addition to the clearing banks if loan accounts were exempted from the Bill.
Loan accounts differ fundamentally from overdrafts in that they are offered on a separate account as a result of negotiation and cannot be created inadvertently. There is, therefore, time for the debtor to be told in writing of the full terms of his agreement. Exemption from this protection would be likely to lead to a major switch from personal loans to loan accounts. Exemption of the clearing banks alone would be against the fundamental principle of the Bill of no exemptions on an institutional basis and would give the clearing banks a competitive advantage over other lenders.
A number of questions were raised concerning leasing, principally by the


hon. Member for Hertfordshire, South-West, from his personal knowledge. The Bill provides for the regulation of hire agreements under which the hirer is an individual and the payments by the hirer are capable of not exceeding £5,000. It has been argued that commercial leasing, where the lessee is in business and has a free choice of goods because the arrangements for financing are separate from the supply of goods, should be excluded from the Bill. But we consider that the small businessman is often in as great a need of protection as the private individual. The fact that he can choose goods from a number of suppliers would be a protection against one form of pressure, but would not provide protection under the financial agreement. We consider that the small businessman should have such protection.
It was further argued that in the case of leasing the upper limit of £5,000 should apply to the capital price of the goods concerned rather than to the payments made under the agreement. But this would introduce an added complication into the Bill. The criterion for exclusion would no longer depend simply on the amount of credit provided. In order to determine whether a leasing agreement came within the scope of the Bill it would be necessary to decide whether it was a genuine leasing agreement or merely a rental agreement. That is, it would be necessary to decide whether the goods were freely selected by the lessee and whether the lessor was an associate of the supplier as well as whether the capital price of the goods themselves exceeded £5,000. In most cases anyway there is likely to be comparatively little difference between hiring agreements for goods worth £5,000 and hiring agreements where the payments total £5,000.
We do not consider, therefore, that a good case for exclusion has been made out. Hiring agreements are normally the subject of a written agreement and we see no reason why such an agreement should not, in general, conform to the requirements of the Bill. The only area in which we recognise that serious difficulties might arise is under Clause 102, which gives the hirer the right to terminate an agreement after 18 months. Provision has therefore been made for commercial leases, where the hirer has a free choice of goods, to be excluded from

the clause, together with large rental agreements. Subsection (7) makes these specific exemptions.
Beyond this there are a great many technical points which affect various forms of consumer lending and about which the Department has been having continued discussions with the interests directly concerned. Many amendments have been made to take account of the points made to the Department and we have further amendments of this type under consideration.
For instance, an amendment was made in another place to Clause 83 so as not to interfere with the duty that the existing law imposes on people who draw cheques to take reasonable care in doing so. It has since become clear that some documents that look like cheques are technically not cheques and we are considering a further amendment to deal with this.
Another point is the operation of the requirement under Clause 78(4)(b) for the creditor to provide periodic statements to running-account customers. Representations have been made to the Department that the present requirement to provide such statements within one month of the ending of those periods during which there is any movement in the account would in certain cases impose unreasonable administrative and financial burdens. We are therefore considering whether some flexibility might be introduced into this provision.
Obviously, I can give no undertaking on these points at this stage, but I can say that the Department will continue to give close attention to genuine points of difficulty that are drawn to its attention. We shall be ready to see what can be done to accommodate them, provided always that the degree of protection for the consumer is not thereby reduced, and that the difficulty put forward is not put forward purely for blocking purposes.
We recognise that flexibility in the application of the provisions in the Bill will continue to be our guiding principle.
The hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) raised a number of matters in respect of credit reference agencies. I should like to say a little about them, although here again it may not be possible fully to satisfy the hon. and learned Gentleman at this stage that


we have fully taken account of the difficulties that he raises.
We are aware that certain credit reference agencies, dealing mainly with inquiries relating to credit for trade rather than domestic purposes, are anxious about Clause 160 which gives effect to the recommendation of the Younger Committee on Privacy that the individual should have a legally enforceable right of access to the information held about him by a credit rating agency.
The clause requires an agency, upon receipt of the payment of 25p, to give the consumer a copy of its file on him. The file means all the information about him kept by the agency. This requirement entails the disclosure of the agency's sources of information, if it keeps this information on file, as well as the reports which it provides in response to inquiries from potential creditors.
These agencies would like the Bill to be amended so as to allow them to keep their sources confidential. I think that the hon. and learned Gentleman correctly stated their reasons. We accept that there may be a problem here, but we have to balance against the interests of these agencies the need to ensure that their arrangements accord with the principles of the Bill. One of these, stemming from a recommendation of the Crowther Committee. is that the protection afforded by the Bill should apply equally to all credit businesses and to all consumers. Another following a Crowther Committee recommendation is that consumers include sole traders and partnerships who may often need as much protection as private individuals. We consider that it would be wrong to seek to define the terms "consumer" and "individual", which here have the same meaning, more restrictively in relation to Clause 160.
Other suggestions have been made, such as that business agencies should be permitted to supply consumers with copies of agency reports on them without disclosing their sources of information. Although we have no wish to be unreasonable or uncompromising about this, we have serious doubts about the possible consequences of a limitation of this kind. Where an agency report contains a comment which is critical of the subject of inquiry, it may be vital to getting any

error rectified for the subject to know who made the comment and in what context. Our view is that although we remain willing to consider any solution suggested to us we cannot see our way to amending the Bill in a way that would not detract appreciably from the protection that it gives to the individual. We shall undoubtedly return to this matter in Committee.

Mr. Carlisle: Will the hon. Gentleman look at what has been done in Canada, in view of the fact that the Canadian legislation makes this distinction, and find out why it has been thought wise to do it there and whether it would be worth considering doing it here?

Mr. Maclennan: I can give the hon. and learned Gentleman the complete assurance that we shall look carefully at what he said, especially about Canadian experience, with a view to seeing whether it would be appropriate in our circumstances.
From what has been said today, I fear that it is clear that a considerable amount of work remains to be done in Committee, notwithstanding the labours in another place and in an earlier Parliament. But what should make our task easier is that this House has welcomed the Bill. I think that it has enjoyed the support of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on both sides. I feel confident that we can rely upon hon. Members to assist us in ensuring that the work of so many people reaches fruition and that the Bill reaches the statute book to become an enduring landmark both in consumer protection and in the law of credit.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN

Bomb Incident

Mr. Speaker: I have to acquaint the House that I have received the following message from Her Majesty the Queen:
I was greatly shocked by the explosion in Westminster Hall this morning. I am very distressed about the injuries and damage that this has caused. Elizabeth Regina.

CONSUMER CREDIT [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to establish for the protection of consumers a new system, administered by the Director General of Fair Trading, of licensing and other control of traders concerned with the provision of credit, or the supply of goods on hire or hire-purchase, and their transactions, in place of the present enactments regulating moneylenders, pawnbrokers and hire-purchase traders and their transactions, it is expedient to authorise—

(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

(a) all expenses incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the provisions of that Act,
(b) any expenses incurred in consequence of those provisions by any other Minister of the Crown or Government department, and
(c) any increase attributable to that Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under the Superannuation Act 1972 or the Fair Trading Act 1973; and
(2) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any fees received by the Director General of Fair Trading under that Act.—[Mr. Alan Williams.]

CONTROL OF POLLUTION BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

6.36 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Anthony Crosland): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
As the House knows, this Bill had its origins in the previous Parliament. It is recognisably based on the measure presented by the late Government in another place, and I hope that in its revised form it will command all-party support in this House and be able to make rapid progress.
It gives me particular pleasure to introduce it today because four years ago I was heavily involved in what were essentially the first steps towards the creation of a systematic anti-pollution policy in this country: the establishment of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, the formation of the Department of the Environment's Central Unit on Environmental Pollution, and the publication of the White Paper on the Protection of the Environment—Cmnd. 4373.
Much of the material in the White Paper has been thoroughly worked over and debated on many occasions in this House, and has now borne fruit in this Bill.
I do not look back to the White Paper in any spirit of party controversy, but rather to illustrate the continuity of policy in this important area. One can reasonably claim that the Conservative Government did little more than consolidate the policy which we had mapped out for them in the White Paper. It is now my turn to present a Bill essentially based on the previous Government's Protection of the Environment Bill, but filled out in one or two important respects to which I shall draw attention later.
Before coming to the detailed provisions of the Bill, I might say a word about the Government's general approach to the pollution problem. The 1970 White Paper identified three basic requirements for an effective pollution control policy, and these are still highly relevant today.
The first is the need for comprehensive scientific and technical knowledge as a basis for effective action. Here a great deal has been achieved in recent years, and I pay tribute to the many thorough investigations and reports which have deepened our understanding of pollution problems. I refer in particular to the three important reports of the Royal Commission under Lord Ashby. In addition, on the water side we had the Working Party on Sewage Disposal, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. Jeger), whose report "Taken for Granted" underlies some of the proposals in Part II of this Bill. On the wastes side, we had the reports of the Working Parties on Refuse Disposal and the Disposal of Solid Toxic Wastes. The Noise Advisory Council and the Clean Air Council have also undertaken studies which have helped to influence policy in those fields. These various investigations have provided the groundwork on which this legislation and other action to protect the environment can now be firmly based. The House will be grateful to all those who contributed to those studies.
There is still a continuing need for the collection of basic statistics and information about the incidence of pollution and its effects. The sources of pollution and the ways in which pollutants affect the environment are immensely complex and need painstaking monitoring. In this country a good deal of systematic information is already recorded, but it has been hard to produce an overall picture of the state of the environment. Our current information is derived from too many different sources; there are still gaps in it; and in certain cases there have been positive barriers to obtaining or publishing the required facts.
The proposals in this Bill will make an important advance here. They will enable the controlling authorities to obtain comprehensive information about the disposal of wastes, polluting discharges into water, noise levels, and emissions of polluting substances into the atmosphere.
This is vital not only for the Government and local authorities; the public has the right to know and to be made fully aware of the state of the environ

ment and the sources of pollution. Obviously we must live with some degree of pollution. A perfectly clean world would be a dead world. But the public must participate fully and actively in decisions about how much pollution should or should not be tolerated. These are not matters to be settled behind closed doors.
The Second Report of the Royal Commission recommended strongly on this matter and called for new measures to increase information on industrial effluents and wastes. The previous Government accepted this recommendation, and we in turn wholeheartedly endorse it. Indeed, we wish to move still further in this direction, both in this Bill and in the Health and Safety at Work. etc. Bill.
I do not wish to raise party feelings on this occasion—that is the last thing I have in mind—but it seems to us that the previous Government were perhaps a little too tender to industry about the protection of trade secrets. Of course, there may be exceptional cases where there is a genuine commercial reason for not publishing information, but these must be regarded as truly exceptional, and we have made changes to Parts II and IV of the Bill to make this clear. Our overriding objective surely must be a freer and fuller flow of information to the public, and the requirements of the Bill will go a long way to achieve this.
The second need of pollution policy which the 1970 White Paper identified is to establish the right framework of economic analysis. The basic problem is the possible conflict of interest between the individual and the general public. As individual polluters, which we all are, none of us wants to go to any more trouble than we must to get rid of our wastes, our effluent and our atmospheric emissions. But, as members of the whole community, we all want a clean environment. We have to strike a balance between these claims and make a judgment of the "best practicable means" of reducing or containing pollution to reasonable levels.
The nature of this balance changes continuously over time as new processes and new forms of pollution emerge. Equally, the technology of pollution control and the resources available for dealing with it develop over time. We all know the


developments of fuel policy and of coal processing techniques which have enabled the domestic smoke control policy of the last 20 years to transform the face of our cities.
The reports of the Alkali Inspectorate are full of similar examples of technical developments which, seized on at the right time, have made possible significant advances in the control of industrial air pollution. For example, over the last 14 years dust emissions from cement works have been reduced from 16 tonnes to two tonnes for every 1,000 tonnes of cement produced. Similar reductions have been achieved in emissions from iron and steel sintering processes and from coal-fired power stations.
What we need is a continuing programme of research by both Government and industry into new techniques of control and new ways of making processes and products cleaner and quieter. In all this I hope that the trade union movement will play an increasingly active and positive rôle.
We want to identify quality objectives for air, for water, for noise, and so on. But I think we should not lay down inflexible national standards in the statute without any regard to local circumstances or to economic factors. The Bill therefore gives the various authorities enabling powers to prescribe conditions and limits for the different forms of pollution rather than itself prescribing absolute standards.
We need the same flexibility on the economic side. As a very broad principle the Government, like their predecessors, subscribe to the principle that the "polluter must pay". In the terms of this Bill, that means that those responsible for any form of pollution must pay the cost of reaching the higher standards which the controlling authorities may require. But we should not be doctrinaire about the universal applicability of this principle.
There may and obviously will be areas where public expenditure has an essential part to play in promoting improvements—for example, in waste and sewage disposal; there is no single economic formula or answer in the area of pollution control.
The third requirement is the need for an adequate administrative framework. Here we are certainly better off than we

were some years ago. At the centre, the Department of the Environment now brings together all aspects of policy relating to the physical environment and the control of pollution and so enables environmental problems to be tackled on a much more co-ordinated basis.
As to local government reorganisation and the reorganisation of the water industry, it is well known that we on the Government side of the House strongly opposed the proposals of the late Government. Nevertheless, we shall do our best to make them work. This Bill makes comprehensive proposals to bring the whole framework of legislative controls over pollution up to date and to extend the powers and duties of the controlling authorities.
I turn now to the Bill itself.
Part I concerns the disposal of waste. Society has of course always needed some means of disposing of the various wastes produced by human life and human activity. But today waste disposal, for a number of reasons, presents far greater problems than ever before. We produce a greater quantity of waste due to higher population and to higher living standards. The diversification of products and industrial processes often throws up new and potentially dangerous or troublesome forms of wastes. At the same time, we face a growing and natural demand for improved standards of disposal in order to reduce nuisance and dereliction. We increasingly realise that the resources of the planet are not unlimited and that we must take steps, and urgently, to reclaim and reutilise waste materials wherever possible.
So it is no longer enough for waste disposal to consist simply of carting away rubbish and tipping it on the nearest available vacant site, though I do not deny the value of properly controlled tipping in suitable places. We need now, in a way that we have not needed in the past, a thorough examination of the quality and nature of the waste arising in each part of the country and of the best ways of dealing with it, taking into account both environmental and economic aspects.
Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill accordingly lay on the new waste disposal authorities—that is, the new counties in England and the new districts in Scotland and Wales—the requirement, first, to carry


out a survey of all the wastes arising in their area, then to consult other interested persons and bodies about the disposal of this waste, and, finally, to draw all this together in a proper waste disposal plan.
I must stress here the vital importance of co-operation between the public and private sectors in this plan-making process. Traditionally, the local authorities have been responsible for dealing with most domestic waste and some commercial waste, while industrial waste has been dealt with by the private sector. The new approach envisaged in this Bill will call for much closer consultation and cooperation which must extend from the survey and planning stage to the stage of actually implementing a disposal plan.
This co-operation will be particularly important in the area of reclamation. A great deal has been said in recent years about the potential that exists for recycling. A good deal of recovery does of course already occur, and we have a flourishing reclamation industry in this country. But there are very large quantities of potentially recoverable material still going to waste. Hon. Members frequently refer to the huge quantities of waste paper which we produce in this country and to the potential for recovery with consequent savings to the balance of payments. There is a wide variety of scrap metals. There are possibilities for recovering rubber. There could be more use of waste glass.
The Government believe that the time has come for a more co-ordinated examination of these possibilities. At the local level, the new waste disposal authorities will have a duty under Clause 2 to draw up schemes for action, as part of their waste disposal plans; and we shall move amendments in Committee to give them wider powers to undertake recycling activities themselves. Industry, of course, also has a vital part to play in exploring and developing new techniques.
At national level, we need a fundamental review of the whole recycling field. We need detailed studies of particular industrial sectors where more recycling might be done. We need both a co-ordination and an expansion of the research effort. We must continuously consider whether, in different fields, the operation of market forces will bring

about a sufficient recovery of wastes, or whether we need Government intervention and incentives. To help us in considering these questions, I have it in mind to set up a wide-ranging waste management council with representatives of industry, local authorities and other interested bodies to examine all the possibilities and to make recommendations. We shall very soon be consulting interested bodies about the composition and terms of reference of the new body.
But this may not be enough. High commodity prices and perennial balance of payments problems, a growing concern for the environment, anxieties about the depletion of finite material and especially mineral resources, and a growing reaction against the whole philosophy of the "throwaway society"—all these may yet impel us to still more radical measures. I am sure that a determined national campaign and a popular campaign against waste may yet become a characteristic feature of our society in the second half of the 1970s. Meanwhile, the Bill represents at any rate a small step in the right direction.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I am delighted to hear what the right hon. Gentleman says about waste reclamation becoming a major feature of our society during the remainder of the century. When he refers to a waste management council, does he have in mind something of a statutory nature, such as the Clean Air Council, or an advisory body, such as the Noise Council? I should very much prefer the right hon. Gentleman to go for a statutory body in the first instance.

Mr. Crosland: I am obliged for that intervention. The hon. Gentleman, having been concerned with the councils he mentioned, will know that the arguments for and against statutory and non-statutory bodies are complex and passionately held by the proponents of the two views. We have not taken a final decision, but I note the hon. Gentleman's comments.
Part II of the Bill deals with water pollution. Here a fairly well-tried system of controls, established by the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts 1951 and 1961, already exists. Part II brings these controls together and extends and strengthens them.
Clause 26 establishes the general offence of causing or knowingly permitting poisonous, noxious or polluting matter to enter water, and extends the scope of the offence to cover virtually all inland and coastal waters. Clause 27 covers all discharges of trade and sewage effluent, including all pipeline discharges, into the sea. These controls will put us in a position to enforce the Paris Convention on the control of land-based sources of marine pollution which, as the House knows, we signed earlier this month. Taking into account also the Dumping at Sea Bill, we are now in a position to ratify each of the three recent marine pollution conventions—of Oslo, London and Paris—to which we are a party.
Clause 41 gives water authorities much strengthened duties and power both to forestall and to remedy water pollution. I know that fears have been expressed about the wide scope of these powers, but I am sure that the new water authorities will exercise them sensibly, so that interference with legitimate activities can be kept to the necessary minimum.
I mentioned earlier our concern, which I am sure the House shares, that information should be available as widely as possible about what is being discharged into the environment, where and in what quantities. Part II contains entirely new provisions for the advertisement of proposals for discharges to water, for representations to be made against such proposals, and for registers of consents given by water authorities and of samples of effluent and river water.
Part III of the Bill deals with noise. Excessive noise is one of the curses of modern society; indeed, many people would say it was the worst of all forms of pollution; and successive Governments have tried to tackle it in a variety of ways. The present Bill takes up the particular problem of "neighbourhood noise"—that is, the noise from industrial and other premises which affects people living within the surrounding area. These proposals are largely derived from the Noise Advisory Council's Report of 1972, which examined the working of the 1960 Noise Abatement Act and made recommendations for strengthening it.
There are four main innovations. First, a strengthening of the existing procedures

by which action can be taken in the courts to get noise nuisances abated. Secondly, Clauses 55 and 56 introduce an important new procedure for controlling noises from construction sites Under this, local authorities will be able to lay down their requirements for noise control before work begins. This will prevent any unnecessary noise while complaints are being investigated, and it will also give the contractor greater certainty that he can go ahead provided he observes the local authority's requirements.
Thirdly, the Bill introduces an entirely new power for local authorities to establish noise abatement zones, in which they can require existing noise levels first to be held constant and then ultimately reduced. Obviously, authorities will not be able to achieve overnight miracles through this new power, but over time it should enable them to make real progress where the ordinary nuisance powers have proved ineffective.
Fourthly, the Bill gives the Secretary of State power to make regulations about the noise of machinery from factories or construction sites, and to require the use of adequate methods of silencing machinery such as pneumatic drills or air compressors.
The Bill does not deal with the more widespread noise nuisance from aircraft and vehicles. We already have comprehensive legislation in that field, and have made some important progress in developing quieter engines and vehicles. Research and development into that continues to be a high priority, and I have no doubts that over the next decade we shall see real progress in this field.
Part IV of the Bill deals with air pollution. Unlike the three earlier parts, it does not introduce a completely new code of control since the existing code is comparatively recent. The last Clean Air Act was in 1968, and the Health and Safety at Work Bill provides for the updating of the provisions of the 1906 Alkali Act.
Nevertheless, there has been no comprehensive review of air pollution since 1954, and I feel that the time has come for a new review. There has been much criticism recently of the Alkali Inspectorate and of the division of functions between the national and the local authority inspectorates. I am not saying that these criticisms are justified—many


well informed people, for example Lord Ashby and Lord Zuckerman when the Bill was debated in another place, believe that they are not—but the fact remains that public anxiety is widespread, and we cannot leave matters where they now stand.
I have therefore asked the Chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Sir Brian Flowers, to undertake a study with the following terms of reference:
To review the efficacy of the methods of control of air pollution from domestic and industrial sources, to consider the relationship between the relevant authorities and to make recommendations.
The Royal Commission has agreed, at my request, to associate with this study a few people with special knowledge of the problems concerned. I envisage one or two representatives of the Clean Air Councils, a trade unionist, an industrialist, a local authority figure, and I certainly want a known, outspoken critic of the present arrangements. I hope we can assemble this team quickly, and I should like the report within a year. The Alkali Inspectorate, whose functions and status may be affected by the report's recommendations, is due to be assimilated into the proposed Health and Safety Executive, but the detailed arrangements are not yet finalised and can be reviewed if necessary in the light of any recommendations.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs: In order to deal with atmospheric pollution, will my right hon. Friend ask the Chairman of the Royal Commission to visit towns such as St. Helens in Lancashire, where only today men, women and children have been demonstrating outside Leathers Chemicals Ltd., because of the emission of dangerous toxic substances? I should like an assurance that the Royal Commission will have power to visit places and take evidence on the spot.

Mr. Crosland: I very much agree with my hon. Friend. It is crucial, if the commission is to do the work properly, that it must have a series of visits to different towns and cities up and down the country which, like those in my hon. Friend's constituency and, indeed, in mine, have special problems of air pollution.
Part IV of the Bill, for the reasons I have indicated, does not contain a complete reformulation of the Clean Air Acts. It does however, deal with three significant topics in this field.
First, we propose a new power to regulate the composition of motor fuel. This will, in particular, enable us to deal with the lead content of petrol.
Secondly, we are taking a power to regulate the sulphur content of oil fuel. It is not clear at present how far it may be desirable to require the desulphurisation of oil, but Clause 71 provides the necessary powers to implement whatever is agreed in due course.
Thirdly, we are proposing new powers to require industry to supply, and enable local authorities to collect, information about air pollution and atmospheric emissions in their areas. This information will be kept in publicly accessible registers, save in certain exceptional cases.
Parts V and VI of the Bill deal with various subsidiary matters which I shall not go into now. But I should draw the attention of the House to Clause 93, which provides for substantial increases in a wide range of penalties for pollution offences to bring them into line with modern levels. These increases follow the review of penalties which we initiated four years ago.
Our society now gives a much higher priority to preserving the environment than has ever been the case in the past. Basically, there are two reasons for this. The first is that as we become better off and increasingly satisfy our basic needs for food, clothing and shelter we naturally attach growing importance to improving the quality of life, in the widest sense of that term. The second reason is that we must take pollution problems more seriously than in the past, because the rate at which many pollutants have been entering the atmosphere has increased to a point where we can no loner take it for granted that the environment has an unlimited capacity to absorb them harmlessly.
We shall not solve the problem by relying solely on market mechanisms. While increase in demand can call forth increasing supply of such things as cars and hi-fi equipment, it cannot call forth


cleaner air or cleaner rivers. There is no such automatic effect.
That is why, at the end of the day, this matter must remain ultimately a problem for central and local government. We certainly shall not solve the problem by adopting what in my view is the fatalistic attitude of the Club of Rome or of the Doom-watch school of thought and calling a halt to economic growth. One can find circumstances where growth and the environment are in conflict, but one can find many more circumstances where continued growth is a necessary condition of improving the environment. For example, I had the pleasure today of meeting the Chairman of the new National Water Council and chairmen of the new regional water authorities, and in the course of discussion I asked them what kind of investment programme would be necessary if we really embarked on major improvements in the quality of our rivers. The figures they came back with were astronomic, and the idea that we may find these vast sums of public expenditure in a no-growth economy does not stand up to serious thought or examination. If we want evidence that growth and the improvement of the environment can be combined, we can look to the evidence—and both parties have played a major part in this—of our history over the past 20 years.
Growth has been slower than many would like, but at the same time we have seen a major improvement in our environment during a period of continued economic growth. The matter was summed up four years ago by Sir Frank Fraser Darling in his Reith Lectures when he said that we are doing well, but not well enough. That is a good summary of the position.
Therefore, we need continued vigilance, and determined willingness to act as necessary if progress is to continue.
I believe that the Bill represents an important step in the right direction.

7.5 p.m.

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher: I start by declaring an interest. Either I or my family have been associated with the petro-chemical or agro-chemical industry for some time. The interests are mainly through my husband. I am not sure whether marriage is an interest which

one ought to declare, but I am being on the safe side in doing so.
We give a general welcome to the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman claimed some degree of parentage for the previous Bill and we claim a good degree of parentage for this Bill. There is no point in arguing about this. Most lusty offspring require two parents and perhaps this is as well. It is good to have the advice and support of both sides.
It is inevitable that after two Bills—the first in their Lordships' House as the Protection of the Environment Bill, and the second this Bill—there is a lot of recycling of speeches. Therefore, we must do our best to avoid repeating points, but I am afraid that that is not wholly possible when dealing with this subject.
This is a very detailed Bill. Not having been directly politically involved with the subject as long as the right hon. Gentleman, I have found it a somewhat exhausting and exacting business in preparing for the debate. I cannot think of any Bill which I have seen introduced in the House which has been preceded by more investigation, research, discussion and consultation than this Bill. It goes back to the Royal Commission to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. The right hon. Gentleman was extremely fortunate in having Lord Ashby as the first chairman and is now equally fortunate in having Sir Brian Flowers as the present chairman.
The right hon. Gentleman appointed the Royal Commission as a watchdog for the public, and one could wish that all Royal Commissions tackled their problems in the way that this one did. It adopted an approach to the problem of first finding the facts and then recommending constructive and practical solutions. That is a good recipe for any Royal Commission when looking into any difficult and detailed problem.
The right hon. Gentleman also referred to some of the other reports which have contributed greatly to solutions in the Bill—the Key and Summer Reports and the Scott Report on Neighbourhood Noise—but that is not the limit of the material. There is a wealth of common law rights, of statutory rights and an enormous library of circulars, as central Governments have tried to introduce the best practices to local authorities, and there have been


endless articles in the Press which have helped draw the public's attention to the things which need to be done. We have a great deal of good will on the part of the public and industry and public authorities. This is an excellent basis on which to go ahead.
The problem has been that many of the responsibilties have been fragmented. I gather that there are 101 pollution monitoring schemes, controlled by nine different Ministries. One of the objectives of the Bill is to have a comprehensive measure to deal with these matters, but when we start looking at the Bill as a matter of principle we realise that many of the points we wish to make will be Committee points. I shall not go through those points at present because a large number of hon. Members wish to speak, but I wish to raise some general points.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that one of the reasons we need to have a Bill arises from technological advance. Looking back we can see how many products which we now use, and which contribute greatly to the standard of living of the nation, have been produced only in the past 30 or 40 years. The first nylon factory was set up in 1941. The many thermoplastic materials originated mainly in the post-war period. These, in particular, have given rise to a number of problems of disposal. But examples of all the plastics are to be found in the kitchen of any housewife, and they have contributed greatly to our standard of living.
On the agro-chemical side, we have had far greater yields through the fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides which are the products of the scientists.
These substances have given rise to a number of problems, of course. Perhaps we did not realise that the great advances in pesticides would cause secondary effects in getting rid of them. The same applies to herbicides. Still less did we realise that some of the fertilisers could cause great agricultural problems. Nitrate put on the soil may leak into inland lakes and waters. stimulating the plant life, which uses up all the oxygen and thus kills off the fish. These secondary effects were unforeseen.
We cannot do without these technological innovations and new chemicals, but the same scientific ability which led to

the introduction of those products is there to solve the problems which arise when we try to dispose of them. Much of the research has been directed to this end, so we need not despair.
My second point concerns the extent of the research which has already been undertaken. In my last work, I was responsible for the research councils and was particularly interested, therefore, in the report from those councils on pollution research relating to the year 1971–72. The right hon. Gentleman might not fully realise, although his predecessor would, that his Department managed to take away some of my research council budget for their own research purposes.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: I remember.

Mrs. Thatcher: My hon. Friend remembers very well. For his Department to get money out of mine was such a traumatic experience for me that it is seared on my soul. But even before that happened a great deal of pollution research was being done by the four research councils.
It is interesting to note from the report that in every one of the four sections into which this Bill is divided research projects were going on even in 1971–72, from the then limited budget they applied to pollution research of £1·2 million. They tackled the matter sensibly, as they always do, by studying the chemical and physical properties of the pollutant substances and their biological effects, by studying recognised pollutant areas, and by solving specified problems.
I am interested to see the extent to which they were already on to problems some of which were unknown to some of us. In regard to the disposal of waste, they were already studying the design of drainage channels and pipes for waste disposal on farms, and they were tackling problems connected with the degradation of sunken oil. They were doing research on the behaviour and persistence of herbicides and insecticides, and on heavy metal pollution of streams and marine waters by mine and mill effluents.
In regard to noise, they had a project on the levels of jet noise, with which the Bill does not deal, for reasons which we understand, and the long-term effects of building noise on hospital staffs. In


regard to atmospheric pollution, they were doing analyses of engine exhaust pollution, with a view to developing low pollution engines. As for sulphur dioxide and fluorine compounds, they were doing studies on their influence on plant growth and crops. These are just examples from many research projects which were already under way. So we are fortunate in coming to this subject with a large amount of research behind us and the knowledge that many of the solutions are already in preparation.
I notice that under Clause 73, dealing with atmospheric pollution, local authorities are given powers not just to contribute to research—which is common—but to undertake it. I wonder whether local authorities are the right bodies to undertake research themselves when other excellent bodies already exist. This tiny point may not have struck other hon. Members, and the provision may have been in the original Bill, but I learned one great lesson from the behaviour of the Labour Party when it was in opposition before. It was never inhibited by what it had said in government. That is a formula which I occasionally propose to adopt.
My third main general point is that there are expensive new duties on local authorities and the regional water bodies which will lead to the employment of far more staff and will be far more expensive than the Financial Memoradum suggests. It is not the plans under the Bill which will have an effect—they will have a partial effect—but how far they are implemented. They will require a large number of technical staff—this point came up in the other place—and also, as the Secretary of State realised, a great deal of extra expenditure. One of the complaints of the local authorities frequently is, "You are always putting new duties on us and then complaining when our expenditure rises considerably."
The noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy, estimated on Third Reading on 21st May that the extra staff of local authorities would cost between £2 million and £3 million per annum—I would have thought that that was an underestimate—and that the extra cost to improving the waste collection services would be £6 million per annum at present costs. We all know that those will not stay as they are. Just a little pointer is the two Bills that I have with me. One is the Control of

Pollution Bill just after it had been amended in Committee in another place. The other is the Bill as it came to us, five days later. The first cost 75p and the second 86p. An increase of 15 per cent. in five days is a little much, even for this Government!
Lord Garnsworthy went on:
Overall public expenditure must be contained within the approved allocations … there can be at this point in time no question of putting large new injections of funds into this area."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 21st May 1974; Vol 351, c. 1394.]
He went on to talk about the best use of resources and some redeployment of staffs.
I would not quarrel with his words in that respect, since he was preaching the language of priorities. Many people would perhaps prefer to put central and local money into the achievement of clean air, clean water, freedom from nuisance, and public amenity than into some other kinds of public projects. I agree with the Secretary of State and with the Second Report of the Royal Commission that if the public are to make these judgments they must have the maximum information. Some people, knowing the state into which air or water will get if we do not make this expenditure, would give that higher priority than some other things on central or local government agendas.
It is vital that more attention should be given to a good and pure water supply, which for years we took for granted. Because of trade effluents and other chemicals going into the water we are in danger of losing the purity. At the moment we are concentrating on oil supplies, but water is one of our most valuable commodities and we must take all necessary steps to ensure that it is in good and clear supply.
The fourth general point is that there is a great gap between legislation and its enforcement, on the one hand, and legislation and the habits of people, on the other. There is only a limited amount that we in Parliament can do to improve the environment. We can make all the plans and, in due course, provide the money to implement those plans, but in spite of the effort and enthusiasm of successive Governments for improving the environment, and particularly in spite of the many anti-litter campaigns,


matters do not always seem to be improving. A walk down the King's Road on a Saturday afternoon will show that the anti-litter campaign is not having a great deal of effect.
Many of the products that we have today are, for convenience and hygiene, wrapped in various kinds of packaging which all too often is thrown down. We are all aware of this. Improvement will not just happen. Some take the view that the propaganda will eventually sink in and that we shall eventually see an improvement. I note the new provisions in the Bill about litter, but this is a classic case in which the public can do more to improve the environment than can Parliament.
I have also noticed, as an ordinary constituency Member, increasing complaints about noise, not only that coming from industry and construction sites but that coming from the house next door. We have not been able to take adequate steps to deal with it. It is rather sad that there are some people who seem to follow courses of action at home which are designed to irritate their next-door neighbours, or who are careless of the consequences for their neighbours. Here, too, legislation is only a matter of last resort. The general standard is determined by people's willingness or otherwise to take consideration for others into account in their own actions.
I shall not go through the four parts of the Bill in detail, for obvious reasons. I want to make one or two points about each part, and we can then deal with them in detail in Committee.
On the disposal of waste, we welcome the general duty to ensure adequate arrangements for the disposal of controlled waste. We particularly welcome the new clause on reclamation and recycling. We also welcome what the right hon. Gentleman said about the advisory council. There is a greater awareness on the part of the public about the need for reclamation and a wish to be prudent in the use of resources. But so often their awareness and wish to help is frustrated by the lack of separate collection of waste paper and metal. There can be nothing more irritating than to have sorted out different things into separate piles and then to see them all

going into the same lorry to be dealt with in the same way.
Recycling is not new. The total value of materials reclaimed annually in Britain is £1,500 million, including £800 million worth of metal. But much more could be gathered from municipal refuse, which I understand amounts to 20 million tons a year, including 14 million tons from domestic waste. We understand that the problem is often that of separating the metals from other materials. It is not as though the waste comes nicely separated into specific metals. One or two metals may occur together, and often they are in association with other materials. I note that a good deal of research is now being done on how to separate these components to make them easier to reclaim.
Paper and plastics in refuse are increasing at the fastest rate. There is a real need to reclaim more paper, because of its increasing use and the long-term supply of available timber stocks. Plastics are the most obstinately persistent of wastes, but, again, there appears to be research into recycling synthetic polymers.
There is a particular point on Part I of the Bill in which the Minister of State may be interested, because it arose at Question Time recently. I refer to Clause 12(4)(b). Perhaps I can explain that without the Secretary of State looking at it. He will remember that that is the clause which lays upon local authorities a duty to empty cesspools, among other things. But it lays upon local authorities only a permissive power to charge. They do not have to charge for the emptying of cesspools. There are certain things for which they cannot charge, but they have a permissive power to charge for emptying cesspools. If it is only a permissive power, many of the problems that the right hon. Gentleman and I are meeting now could be solved by the local authorities refraining from charging. Alternatively, we have the solution in our hands, because by striking out their power to charge—bearing in mind that there is a sewerage rate—for the emptying of septic tanks, and by invoking the capacity, in Clause 102, to make different clauses effective from different appointed days, we could have solved this problem by the time that the House rises for the Summer Recess—I assume by the end of July. It appears that the Minister of State wishes


to intervene. He may have the information ready.

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Mr. Denis Howell): I am obliged to the right hon. Lady. She has raised quite an interesting point. As my right hon. Friend has said, we met the water authority chairmen this morning. This is one of the matters that we raised and that they certainly wished to raise in view of the concern in the country and the House. It is odd that the local authorities have these powers while water authorities do not. In looking at the question whether we should charge, as we do now, and what should be done about householders who cannot have their houses connected to the sewer-able system, for which they should be charged—about which I gave an undertaking in a recent Adjournment debate—it is quite clear that we cannot look at this problem in isolation. I give the right hon. Lady the assurance that we shall do all that we can to get this done as speedily as possible. We can return to the matter in Committee, and I am sure that there is no division on either side of the House about it.

Mrs. Thatcher: On the provisions of the Bill, we have the means to a solution. I am concerned that those means should be used. What really interested me is that these are permissive and not mandatory powers. If local authorties co-operated, one could have no charge at all at present.

Mr. Stephen Ross: I should like to point out to the right hon. Lady that some local authorities were not under the impression that they would have this duty left to them in regard to cesspits. They were certainly under the impression that some of the regional water authorities would do the job and, therefore, have not budgeted for the job. Therefore, if the right hon. Lady is saying that local authorities will have to do it without making a charge—as most of the m are trying to do—she is asking them to find the money for this service from somewhere else.

Mrs. Thatcher: The ratepayer is already paying through the sewerage rate. Many people are not getting the service but are being charged for it and are also having to pay to have their own septic

tanks emptied. The main political parties in the House thoroughly understand this problem.
I turn to the part of the Bill dealing with the pollution of water. I note the changes in the clauses on pollution arising from good agricultural practice. There is a fundamental dilemma here, that good husbandry may nevertheless lead to pollution. I see what has been done in the amendments to the clauses. It may be that some of my hon. Friends who are connected with the agricultural industry still feel it is not enough. As we know, the agriculture industry is going through particularly difficult times at present and may wish to pursue the question of compensation. I know of the reasons why we should treat agriculture in the same way as we treat industrial concerns. But equally, we realise that there is a difference, and hon. Members may wish to pursue the matter in Committee in regard to treating agriculture differently.
I welcome Clause 54, which deals with noise. This will enable many householders to take action against those who offend in neighbouring households without having to invoke the local authority's powers or having, as previously, to get the signature of two other people under the ordinary nuisance provisions of the law.
From what the right hon. Gentleman said, I understand that he is setting up a new study of pollution of the atmosphere, which we welcome. From the debate in the other place, I understand that we may have to have lead and sulphur in petrol for longer than we would wish; but we all know that the reason for that is the supply of crude oil.
The Bill represents the most comprehensive attempt for many years to bring pollution under proper control. It may be couched in dull phraseology, but it is likely to have a greater and more lasting effect on the quality of life in many parts of Britain than most other measures. We shall do all we can to assist its passage to the statute book.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop: I join in the welcome to the Bill, whatever its parentage. It has been in another place twice, which must be something of a record, and now it arrives here.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend went rather wide in introducing the Bill and placed it in its setting against the problems we face in society. This enabled us to judge what advance we can hope for from this relatively modest measure, important though it undoubtedly is.
I was glad that my right hon. Friend referred to some of the difficulties in modern society that bring in their train many complicated pollution problems. Professor Commoner, amongst others who have been expressing views about the difficulties of modern life, has emphasised his belief that gross pollution is a product of the size of a population, with modern technologies.
Linked with that is the impetus in our modern society that demands growth—not only growth which we might all welcome for its social and other values, but growth for its own sake. My right hon. Friend criticised those who have attempted to argue for a no-growth position—a position which few in the Chamber would adopt. But we need to take a much more critical view than we have taken in the past about the type of growth that we are prepared to accept. We need to decide what kind of growth and for what purposes.
We need to examine again the composition of our gross national product, which perhaps has tended to be regarded as the one criterion of success or failure. Britain's economy has not been notably successful in recent years in that regard. Therefore, it has been natural for us to look at growth without much citicism. We cannot afford to do this. We must adopt a serious and critical view of the growth of society.
For example, we are landed with the waste that has resulted from so much built-in obsolescence in our modern, profit-seeking economy. Much of this waste imposes high costs and complicated recycling tasks upon public bodies. All the additional costs here go into the gross national product. Much of it is probably unnecessary and adds enormous problems to disposal.
The packaging industry has been built up into an enormous industry on its own. In some shops it is difficult to buy things unpackaged. The Bill cannot tackle

many of these problems, and does not set out to do so.
I greatly welcome the main provisions of the Bill, though there may be detailed points of criticism later. Many of us have for a long time urged the extension of effective controls in the tidal reaches of rivers, which previously have not been under effective control for pollution, with a resultant very deleterious effect upon many of our most famous rivers.
I welcome the proposed establishment of the Waste Management Council. I hope that it will be able to give us much more practical information on the way in which recycling can operate. I am glad that the Bill has been so framed as to take account of any advice that might come from such bodies.
I am glad that there is to be a review of the efficiency of existing methods of control of air pollution. Everyone will agree that great advances have been made and that the danger is lest we become too smug about our achievements. The work which has been done in Britain is highly regarded internationally, but much more remains to be done in more complicated areas of air pollution.
The support of trade unions is necessary. There is a danger of a clash of interests here. Experience in other countries as well as here has shown that it can make a great difference if the vigorous support of the trade union movement can be marshalled behind a determination to improve standards. This may arise, for example, where there is a problem of dealing with effluents from a major industrial organisation and the employees fear that if pressure is applied to achieve higher standards, employment at the establishment will be endangered, with perhaps the eventual move of the organisation elsewhere. We must seek to establish effective workable international rules. This can be accomplished only after a period of education and with the closest co-operation with the union involved.
I am glad that we are attempting to tighten up on the question of secrecy that has been enforced by some firms about the nature of their effluent. Most people would regard such efforts by firms as a wholly unnecessary exercise in maintaining secrecy against the public interest. The provisions of Clause 37 may help to


deal with the matter more effectively than hitherto.
Noise is covered by the Bill. I share the view of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that noise is perhaps the greatest polluter of all, although to some extent this is perhaps a matter of ale. I find that younger people seem to be able to withstand noise much more than those of us who are getting older, avid I only hope that noise does not have the effect on the eardrums of the younger people that I believe it must have. The control of noise is a difficult matter. It will not be easy in the Bill to achieve precision about those things, which are causing the noise pollution and, more particularly, to deal with the noise pollution caused by an individual factory. The problem will be to separate the noise caused by one factory from that caused by traffic and a multitude of other sources it the area. There are many practical difficulties to be faced, but this is a matter for consideration in Committee and we shall no doubt be seeking advice in this respect.
I welcome the step forward that the Bill represents, but let us be under no misapprehension about the modest advance that we are likely to be able to make under its provisions. Some of the problems created by modern technology challenge us to make certain major reassessments of our standard of values in society.

7.42 p.m.

Mr. David Mudd: As yet there has been no controversial discussion of the Bill, and I begin by declaring an unusual interest. The West Country regional television company Westward Television has embarked upon an interesting programme for young viewers. As part of a series, it has attempted to explain the mysteries of parliamentary life and legislation. In order that this should become a practical experience it invited young viewers to write in about the sort of thing they would like to see put right by Parliament. A typical letter came from one of my constituents, Lynn Roberts, who is a sixth former at Camborne Grammar School. She, in common with a majority of the young people, was concerned about litter waste and felt that insufficient was being done by way of reclamation and recycling in the light of a growing national need.
On her behalf, therefore, I was most interested when the Bill was published because I felt that here we could get to grips with the question of compulsory reclamation and recycling by local authorities. However, as I read the Bill I realised that I was to be disappointed. I refer specifically to Clause 2(2)(e) and 14(2) because both make it clear that the legislation is aimed at recognising the need for a growing volume of reclamation and recycling, but the Bill does not make it mandatory for these things to be done.
This depresses me and a large number of people in Cornwall because we feel that something positive must be done. This is certainly a growing problem with refuse throughout the country. Last year alone, it is estimated, the total amount of refuse disposed of was 369,000 tons, slightly more than one ton for every man, woman and child in the county. We are increasingly discovering that the tips are rapidly becoming inadequate and we are now facing the problems of infestation. We therefore have the double-pronged desecration of the countryside. It is visually unacceptable, and for the people who have the misfortune to live around these tips it is totally unacceptable from a hygiene point of view. Some of the new district councils in Cornwall are hell-bent on a policy of ravaging the countryside, finding bigger and better holes in which to tip bigger, better and more multicoloured loads of refuse.
The Bill does not seem to be prepared to come to grips with compulsory segregation and compulsory reclamation. I understand that the reason may be that the Association of District Councils has said that it would bluntly oppose any compulsory measures. I have this on the authority of the association's secretary, Mr. Stephen Rhodes, who wrote to me on 4th April saying,
I am sure our new associations would resist compulsory recycling by all its authorities.
To support this strong statement, Mr. Rhodes goes on to say that in the past one or two local authorities have had their fingers rather badly burned financially when salvage segregation became a loss-making activity for them.
I do not share his gloom, because the evidence is that before the reorganisation of local government on 1st April no fewer than 400 local authorities in


England and Wales were involved in some regular form of reclamation for recycling purposes, and I am proud that that list of 400 authorities included the Camborne and Redruth Urban District Council which, with a population of 40,000, had a weekly target of 15 tons of waste paper to be collected and shipped away as an aid towards easing the local rates.
The British Paper and Board Industry Federation, too, is opposed to unrestricted supplies of waste paper for recycling. It wants to avoid what it describes rather delicately as "embarrassing surpluses arising". For whom would they be embarrassing? It would not be embarrassing for the environment if this bulky, fluffy, dirty waste paper were to be taken away from tips and turned into something of value for the community. It could surely not be said to be embarrassing for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for recycling could assist our balance of payments to the tune of £250 million a year. To whom, therefore, would there be an embarrassing surplus?
Those are the observations of that section of the industry, but the plastics industry has no doubts. It told me on 21st March this year that the plastics reclamation industry is full of admiration for Canada's lead in encouraging cooperation between industry, Government and householders to expand recycling from the environmental as well as from the economic point of view. In an exchange of correspondence with Mr. A. W. V. Holden, of the National Industrial Materials Recovery Association, I have discovered that he has no reservations about the need for a positive action to be taken by the Government over compulsory reclamation. He believes that incentives should be given to the new district authorities in the form of a capital investment grant to offset the high capital equipment costs and the labour-intensive element of the segregation process.
Clause 47 relates to the imposition of charges in respect of discharges of trade effluent. If these measures were carried to their ultimate, without alteration in Committee, they could hit the viability of the Cornish tin-mining industry at the very time when it is increasingly in our national interest that we should develop and expand the industry as it has never been expanded and developed before.

Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Does my hon. Friend agree that Clause 47 by itself would constitute a pollution tax?

Mr. Mudd: I agree with my hon. Friend. It would be an additional form of crippling taxation at a time when we should be giving tax incentives to encourage the mineral industry instead of penalising it further.
In the Cornish tin mines we have what we believe to be an almost unique situation. It is necessary to pump out water from long-disused workings if mines are to survive. The pumping of the water, which in the main is totally unpolluted, would be chargeable even if most of the flow from the mines were free of pollution. The water so drawn from the workings of the mines is of such an unpolluted level and content that it helps to dilute the pollution normally found in the rivers and streams into which it is pumped.
The mining industry must not be charged for the unavoidability of recovering millions of gallons of unpolluted water. To over-tax tin mining still further could lose production and cost jobs and, ironically, it could lose a source of good water which assists in purifying the environment. I hope that the clause will be substantially amended in Committee.
The time is long overdue for the Government to assist industry directly, through the research facilities of the National Engineering Laboratory, to evolve a system for the solidification of sludge, thus totally conquering any question of pollution.
The points I have raised are not controversial or political. I believe them to be common sense. If they are considered by the Government and acted upon we shall have an Act of which we can be proud as we go into the twenty-first century. But if we allow by default these anomalies, oversights and indecisions to go unchecked, we and our successors will have occasion to rue the day when we allowed a golden opportunity to plan for the future to pass needlessly and wastefully to slip through our fingers.

7.53 p.m.

Mr. Sydney Irving: The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) was disappointed because


the Bill did not contain a requirement for compulsory recycling. He criticised the Association of District Councils. I have no doubt that the secretary of the association had in mind that recycling and separation plant is very costly, and there is no means, particularly with the difficulties facing district councils and others, to find the capital investment without which the work cannot be done. The hon. Gentleman later made no bones about requiring the Government to pay for other things, but he did not mention that it would be necessary to have a subvention from the Government if the capital investment for recycling processes were to be undertaken.
I welcome the Bill, because it indicates our determination to control and improve our environment, and to protect it from nuisances arising from spoliation by waste, noise, pollution of water and, particularly, pollution of the atmosphere.
I apologise to the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) for not hearing her speech, although I heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I was incarcerated in the Standing Committee considering the Finance Bill, where a Division had been pending for at least an hour. The right hon. Lady will know something of the difficulties.
The right hon. Lady will also know, because she is very familiar with the part of the world from which I come, North-West Kent, that that area has the largest concentration of cement plants in the world. The right hon. Lady sought to represent the constituency some years ago. She will know that my interest is not only in atmospheric pollution but is an interest in pollution generally as a member of a local authority that has to try to deal with the matter.
As my right hon. Friend said, the Bill comes at a time when the traditional instrument of control, which has been operating for nearly a century, the Alkali Act, and the Alkali Inspectorate and the 1906 regulations, are increasingly under attack. No doubt my right hon. Friend succeeded in disarming some of the critics by the announcement of a Royal Commission, but Royal Commissions take time. I wish to draw my right hon. Friend's attention to one or two of the criticisms, because they are relevant and should be dealt with quickly.
In talking about the Alkali Inspectorate, I in no way reflect on the professional competence of its members. It is a highly qualified and conscientious body, with which I have had contact for a number of years. The work of its individual members is excellent. The first criticism to be made is directed not so much at the inspectorate as at successive Governments. It is whether the numbers in the inspectorate are enough to keep a proper check on all the scheduled works. There are 37 inspectors for 2,158 works, which means a visit of not more than once or twice a year. In certain cases it may be the day after a serious emission, or two days after it, before the inspector checks on a problem which has been causing local difficulty. This is a matter which is in the keeping of my right hon. Friend. The inadequate numbers could be put right fairly quickly.
The second criticism is one that I hope my right hon. Friend will refer to the chairman of the Royal Commission. It is a criticism of the policy of relying on the principle of the best practicable means. Local authorities have felt for a long time that that principle gives far too much latitude to many firms. In any case, it is no good having the best arrestment equipment in the world if the concentration of plants or intensity of production still leave an intolerable nuisance and an unacceptable volume of dust.
Canada has in her legislation a further principle, reinforcing the principle of the best practicable means—the idea of ground level concentration limits. We should like to see that principle included in the regulations to replace the 1906 regulations. I hope that my right hon. Friend will recommend the chairman of the Royal Commission to look into the matter.
Thirdly, there has been direct criticisms of the inspectorate for its habit of cosying along firms rather than relying on prosecutions. A number of local authorities have felt that that policy is not tough enough. That is not to say that we want to prosecute every firm that makes a mistake or does not come completely up to scratch. But there have been only 14 prosecutions since 1920, so prosecution is not an instrument that has been used very often or with any vigour. The prosecutions have invariably been of what


are called the mini-polluters, the small boys in the industry, not the big people with the big works which may be making a major contribution to atmospheric pollution.
In some cases the alkali inspectors have accepted economic arguments against the installation of modern equipment, and export considerations have been taken into account, thus denying for some years the protection that local residents are entitled to expect.
One other matter is that up to 1973—

Mr. Julius Silverman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the present system provides a duplication of work as between the local authority and the Alkali Inspectorate?

Mr. Irving: It is true that we employ highly qualified officers in local government. I think that they are capable of doing a lot more than has been allowed in the past. I hope that in future greater scope will be allowed to the environmental officers and other officers in local authorities who can take on part of the work of monitoring.
Up to 1973 re-registration of scheduled plants was almost automatic. Indeed, the life of the equipment was put at 10 years. In many cases it was a long time before a reassessment of the best practical means could be undertaken. I hope that in the new regulations, with or without the support of the Royal Commission, careful examination of the best practicable means will be made on each re-registration and that it will no longer be automatic. I hope that my right hon. Friend, in securing the improvements which the Bill seeks, will consider these matters carefully.
The new legislation will still give the local authorities a public health function. I welcome Clause 74(2) as it enables a local authority to secure information from the works concerned. However, Clause 74(3) restricts this information in the case of scheduled works. The subsection reads:
If the notice relates to a work subject to the Alkali Act, the person on whom the notice is served shall not be obliged to supply any information which, as certified by an inspector appointed under that Act, is not of a kind

which is being supplied to the Inspector for the purposes of that Act.
I ask firmly, "Why?".
A number of local authorities have been greatly frustrated by not being able to get certain information essential to the making of a proper judgment even on the best practicable means. Often that has been because of the reluctance of the inspectorate and the companies to disclose such information. For example, my authority has asked for such information many times and I have asked for it in past years. The clinker ratio, without which the true slip to the atmosphere and the use of the plant cannot be ascertained, has sometimes not been available. In the minds of some members of local authorities there was the idea that the inspectorate was reluctant even to ask the companies for such information. That situation is likely to be perpetuated if Clause 74(3) stays as it is. We would like it to be varied so that the information that the local authority can get may be both that for which the inspector asks and that for which he has not asked relating to the process concerned.
Disclosure is no longer a problem and I do not believe that confidentiality is any longer justified, especially as the Bill puts in special protection in Clause 73(5) against improper disclosure of commercial information. This is a matter of great concern to my constituents. As I have said, in my constituency there is the biggest concentration of cement plant in the world.
I am pleased to note that the Bill seeks to deal with construction sites. In my exprience within my constituency there have been two occasions when my constituents were intensely irritated by noise from piling and piling machines. On both occasions it was possible after pressure to give some relief by the use of different equipment and by the use of mufflers. It would have been much better and easier if the powers under the Bill had been available at that time.
I give a general welcome to the Bill and I hope that it will be law before the summer.

8.5 p.m.

Mr. Stephen Ross: My party very much welcomes the Bill. It has our full support. Like the right hon.


Member for Dartford (Mr. Irving), we trust that it will pass through its remaining stages without undue delay. It is a complicated measure and not easily assimilated—certainly not by one who, like myself, has not previously been involved in the detailed and high-powered deliberations that have preceded the introduction of this measure. We have heard a lot about those deliberations this evening and about the legislation which the Bill incorporates or amends.
My party gives its support to Part I, although, if permitted, we may wish to table small amendments in Committee to Clauses 3, 6, 7 and 17.
Clauses 20–25 deal with the litter problem. I only hope that the Treasury will find itself able to make the grants which are referred to in Clause 21(4). There is a great deal more that could be done to persuade holiday makers, day trippers and others who go into the countryside to take their litter home with them. I represent an island constituency and I have for long advocated that we should meet the trippers with paper bags as they come off the boat and ask them to deposit their litter in the bags and take the bags away with them. I have also sought to persuade my local authority to provide sensible litter bins. Nothing looks worse than the contents of wire baskets being blown on to the grass verges and hedgerows.
I suggest that nothing offends the eye more, or causes more trouble to local authorities when they operate their grass cutting machines. than long stretches of the grass verges of our main roads covered with tins, bottles, papers, and old damaged motor cars piled up in scrapyards or thrown over the cliffs on to the sea shore The Secretary of State's remarks on recycling are greatly to be welcomed.
I have a few reservations regarding Part II. Clause 26, for instance, makes it an offence to cause or knowingly to permit:
any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter to enter any stream or controlled waters or any specified underground water".
That is then specified as "relevant waters". It also lists defences available to a person charged with such an offence. The Protection of the Environment Bill as originally printed contained as a defence a provision that a person was not guilty of an offence if

the entry in question is attributable to events none of which that person could reasonably have been expected to prevent.
The purpose of that provision was to provide a general defence of due diligence to a person who, in spite of taking all precautions, was alleged to have caused the entry of any poisonous, noxious or polluting matter into relevant waters. A defence such as this is necessary because experience has shown that it is apparently not necessary to prove that a person who is alleged to have "caused" polluting matter to enter a stream did so intentionally or knowingly, or was negligent in any respect. The lack of such a defence could result in the establishment of an absolute offence. We would like to see some amendments to the clause as drafted. We can look back to the previous Bill for the guide lines.
We are also concerned that the original Clause 36 of the Protection of the Environment Bill has been deleted in its entirety. Industry feels strongly that, taking into account the new provisions in the Bill, the continuation of injunction procedures are now an anomaly and that they place a potential burden on industrial undertakings and regional water authorities which is unwarranted and unjustified. We should like to see incorporated a new clause based on Clause 36 of the Protection of the Environment Bill as originally printed.
We also have reservations about Clause 41, to which the Secretary of State referred. The main objection to that clause as it stands is the uncertainty that is introduced. A person setting up a works, irrespective of whether it is a factory, and discharging treated effluent, or a water authority operating a sewerage treatment plant, must go through detailed procedures to obtain planning permission and consent to discharge. It is unreasonable, having done that, that there should be the possibility of incurring additional expense or closure because of some minor effect on the fauna or flora of the receiving stream.
Certain sections of industry which give rise to effluents derived from cellulosic and carbohydrate materials could well be at risk as, paradoxically, the more such effluents are purified the greater the possibility of there being locally deleterious effects on existing flora and fauna. The same mischance can occur in respect of


effluents discharged from sewage treatment works of water authorities. In another place, the noble Lord, Lord Garnsworthy referred to these anxieties and suggested that the problems could be ameliorated, if not solved, by informal discussions between industry and the water authorities concerned. But we do not think that that is a practical arrangement, and would like subsections (1), (2), (3) and (8) of Clause 41 removed.
Most of my comments relate to a degree of reasonableness in implementation, and at a time of ever-increasing costs facing industry and local authorities it would be folly to impose measures which could lead to unnecessary expenditure to right what might be minor faults.
Part III of the Bill, which attempts to deal further with the problem of noise, is welcomed by us as, I am sure, by all other hon. Members. So is Part IV. I think that I am one of the few hon. Members who saw the film shown this evening, "The Right to Know". I, too, am concerned about the restriction on the disclosure of information which occurs in Clause 73.
Where the local authorities are to find the finance to employ the staff which it is expected will eventually be required to deal with these matters is problematical, to say the least, but that is one more good reason for a radical reform of our present rating system.

8.12 p.m.

Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: I intend to be very brief in welcoming the reintroduction of this Bill very warmly. I have none of the technical or expert knowledge of chemistry or of the expertise in local government which so many hon. Members have already shown in the debate. But although I intend to be brief, untechnical and inexpert, I shall be none the less vehement in my praise for certain parts of the Bill, and my experience with the problems of pollution is entirely the expertise of dealing with human beings who have to face pollution daily in their lives.
We cannot consider the quality of life without considering the environment as a vital ingredient. That point has been put by both my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) and the Secretary of State. There can

not be an hon. Member representing a town, let alone an ancient city such as I do, who is not aware that the environment of large groups of his or her constituents is very detrimentally affected by smoke, noise, deposits and the other sorts of pollution. Indeed, in Gloucester, just name it, and we have got it, or we have had it.
We have got something called the "Westgate smell", a noxious odour coming from a tallow factory. We have diesels revving up at railway bridges. We have a hospital chimney which sometimes smokes. We have every kind of factory noise and nuisance in residential areas. Added to this, we have a great deal of construction nuisance as well. Many people's lives are made a misery, and some of them are verging on nervous disorder as a result of pollution of their personal environment.
In some cases, it might be argued, "They knew when they bought their house that it was near a factory and that there would be problems with fumes or noise". But this is not the case. Very often, in most fragile factory buildings a new machine is placed where there has been one previously, where there are even gaps in the corrugated iron wall, and these people are suddenly subjected to noise nuisance and smoke and also to pollution by deposits, very often, on their furniture, carpets and curtains as a result.
I have been struck by the heartfelt complaints made to me by constituents and also by the fact that, despite the distress they were personally encountering, they have always been most particular not to endanger the jobs of those involved in the work in such factories. I am particularly pleased that in the Bill the statutory undertakers, who, I understand, have nothing to do with funeral services but are public bodies, and who were exempt from the provisions of the Noise Abatement Act 1960, are no longer to be exempt. I wonder whether this will apply to the revving of diesels by British Rail, although I realise it will not always apply to the smoking of my hospital chimney because the National Health Service cannot be prosecuted. I should add that both British Rail and the hospital board have tried as hard as possible to co-operate but in many


cases it has been impossible for them to do so.
I have been particularly concerned about the enforcement provisions in existing legislation. Therefore, I am pleased to see in the Bill that the right of appeal against a noise abatement notice is to be reduced to 14 days and that local authorities will be required to order abatement within a specific time. This should bring about considerable improvement.
Again, because of the noise abatement zones provided for in the Bill, we have an opportunity in such cities as Gloucester to create a "lack of noise climate" for a whole neighbourhood which never presented itself before.
I am also delighted to note that a local authority can issue a notice requiring the occupier of premises to furnish details of any fumes being emitted. There is a chemical factory in my constituency and a number of the cars which are parked nearby—they happen to belong to workers from a different factory—have had the paint stripped off by fumes emitted by the chemical factory. The fibreglass body of a car is actually beginning to disintegrate. I have corresponded with the public analyst about this, but have not been able to obtain satisfaction on behalf of my constituents.
It would appear that in our society refraining from polluting is, like good manners, consideration for other people's feelings. I think that we can, by means of the teeth which have been put into the Bill, educate a great many people and organisations into exercising good manners in this way.
There is only one thing that I think is missing from the Bill. Perhaps we are not far advanced enough in our progress in dealing with pollution for me to expect to see it in the Bill. This is the pollution of the environment by philistine planning authorities—planning authorities comprised of people who have no aesthetic or professional qualifications whatsoever. We have only to look around some of our villages and countryside to see how far that form of environmental pollution has gone.
The Secretary of State said that in no way must progress and development be hindered by our attempts to conquer pollution. I agree with him, but I say in

conclusion that pollution is not a price that we should be prepared to pay for progress.

8.19 p.m.

Mr. Bruce George: I begin with an apology. This speech is not as well researched as I would like it to have been, but the copious notes I had prepared over the last couple of months on this subject helped to pollute the environment of London at 8.20 this morning, and the desk on which I was to have written my speech, which was on the first floor, is now somewhere, in several parts, on the ground floor.
I want to deal with the effect of noise on the environment. This Bill is not one to excite party conflict. It will not result in massive back bench revolt. Nevertheless the effect upon the ordinary person is likely to be enormous. The Industrial Revolution created disaster areas of pollution in many parts of the country. In my own constituency in the Midlands, and in the Black Country generally, we have examples of how the Industrial Revolution destroyed what was at one time a beautiful environment.
I apologise for requoting something I said a few weeks ago. This is a quotation from an economist who wrote a book called "The Costs of Economic Growth". He said:
the desire to create the Jerusalem of economic growth in England's green and pleasant land has so far resulted in a conspicuous lack of both greenness and pleasantness.
I hope that in some small way this measure will reverse the process and create a more favourable environment.
At one time pollution, noise and smoke were regarded by many as the inevitable price we had to pay for progress. In a modern, sophisticated age I believe that we can have progress and economic growth yet still improve the environment. I cannot see any reason why such aims should be incompatible. What is remarkable about the last five or six years has been the way in which public attitudes have changed. At one time the environmental lobby was regarded as an assembly of cranks. Ten years later these cranks have become accepted and the policies they were espousing are regarded as acceptable and natural. I refer to such organisations as the Noise Abatement Society.
Noise is probably the worst of the pollutants. If that had been said 10 years ago in this House people would have fallen about the floor laughing. Noise was regarded by many as a nuisance but was not put on the same plane as atmospheric pollution. We must compliment the environmental lobby on bringing home to Government and public alike the problems of pollution. Perhaps it has overstated its case and in some ways partly destroyed it by over-exaggeration of the consequences.
Nevertheless, such bodies play an invaluable rôle in public education. Obviously noise is subjective. What is noise to one person is not noise to another. Perhaps if I listened to a pop group such as Slade it would be a din to me but pure music to the teenager. On the other hand, a whisper of a speech from certain Conservative Members might be called a din. Noise is unwanted sound, whatever the level of that sound. It depends on the individual concerned.
Legislation on this goes back some time. I am informed that Queen Elizabeth I issued a Proclamation in the 1580s limiting the times in which males of Elizabethan England could beat their wives. Then there was the epoch-making Steam Whistles Act in the 1830s, an indication that Parliament was prepared to legislate in this area.
The Public Health Act 1936 made some advances in this direction. However we must look to the Noise Abatement Act, with all its defects, as the first indication of Government recognising the problems and being prepared to legislate. This was introduced as a Private Member's Bill by the then Mr. Rupert Speir. It began its life in the draftsman's office as a powerful measure. As it wended its way through the various Departments the powerful clauses were removed. When the Bill came before Parliament it was weak. By the time it left Parliament it was so weak as to be almost innocuous. It frightened few people, except perhaps those who sold ice cream and who were restricted in the use of their chimes.
As the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mrs. Oppenheim) said, statutory undertakers were exempt. The major noisemakers were given a free run. The large industrialists, the aircraft companies, local

authorities and nationalised industries, were largely exempt from the provisions of the Act. Its procedures were slow, its penalties trifling. It did little to prevent noise or to abate it after it was made.
This Bill will go further in encouraging the abatement of noise. It will play a part in diminishing noise, not in eliminating it. There is one simple way of eliminating noise and that is to close down the factories. Obviously people are not in favour of that. There has to be a compromise between those who make the noise and those on the receiving end of it. Let us hope now that the balance will be tilted a little more in favour of the receivers of the noise and away from being in favour of those who manufacture it.
There are some useful innovations in the Bill. The noise abatement zones are novel although, if I may impart another piece of useless information, I am told that the Greek city state of Sybaris in the fourth century BC established noise abatement zones. It has taken us 2,400 years to catch up.
The Wilson Committee, which dealt with the subject in the early 1960s, revealed, perhaps for the first time, the economic consequences of noise. Noise is much more than a nuisance, because it reduces efficiency. Typists working in an office, people working in factories, can have their judgment affected, their speed reduced as a result of excessive noise. The detrimental effect on people seeking to enjoy their leisure time is great. If people cannot sleep because there are motorways near by, this will clearly have an effect on their economic performance the following day. I do not want to over-exaggerate this. The effects of noise are by now well-chronicled.
In some parts of my constituency there are residential-industrial zones. It is all very well solving the problem of excessive noise if we can isolate the factories. But in the older parts of the country, built before the dawn of modern planning, there are areas where factories and houses have grown haphazardly. Ultimately either the homes or the factories must go. Both extremes will be economically disastrous. What we have to do in the short term is somehow to reconcile the interests of producers, work people and residents.
If I may be forgiven for introducing an element of the parish pump into our proceedings, there is a factory in my constituency know as Chamberlin and Hill which emits noise as a result of various processes taking place within it. This noise is having an adverse effect upon hundreds of nearby residents. Efforts to reduce the noise will be costly. If such a case ever went to court under existing law, such factories could use the "best practical means" argument to drive a coach and four through the case of any objector.
I have in mind the way in which local authorities are obliged to operate British Standard No. 4142. This provides a code for local authorities, but it is tremendously weak. We can pass the finest Act in the world. However, the regulations supporting it are all-important. Unless we tell companies their maximum levels, all this effort will be to no avail. It is easy to say that the permitted level of noise will be four decibels. Four decibels can be incredibly noisy. Nor should we be fooled by companies which say that they cannot reduce noise. That is often an excuse for minimising the money which they spend on noise abatement measures.
I want now to make a few brief comments on the Bill itself. I fear that, when it becomes legislation, it will pose enormous problems and almost a new dimension of responsibilities for our local authorities. I doubt whether they have the resources in trained manpower and the machinery necessary for taking upon themselves this greatly added burden.
I also wonder whether the fines or sanctions proposed are sufficiently high. Obviously we must work via negotiation, encouraging firms voluntarily to abate their noise. In many cases this will be invaluable and successful. But should it fail and should a company refuse to cooperate—bearing in mind that there are many ways of refusing—the fines and sanctions must be sufficiently heavy to deter. The second or third line of defence—the courts—must be sufficiently strong to deter.
Then I wonder whether the powers of the Alkali Inspectorate are to be increased. Recently I read with interest a publication of Social Audit which had one or two strong things to say about the way in which the alkali inspectors

enforce their responsibilities. These agents of the Government must be given more power to enforce.
I wonder, too, whether individuals who are aggrieved will be given more power to obtain redress for their grievances. We shall have a situation where a mighty polluter in the shape of a large factory is opposed to an individual, a family or a group of residents. That is a very unequal conflict. The company can call upon the most eminent barristers and other legal assistance. Can the resident who complains call upon such resources? I hope that the law, amended in this Bill, can tilt the balance more in favour of residents who are aggrieved, and I believe that it will.
Will the Bill encourage further research? There have been enormous advances in research into noise levels over the past decade. People, manufacturers and individuals have become much more noise-conscious. By increasing the potential penalties, the Bill will give a gentle nudge to manufacturers to produce, for example, quieter engines. We have only to look at the way in which certain aircraft engines have quietened over the past decade—though, of course, there are exceptions.
This measure will not be epoch-making. It will be yet another act in a piecemeal process to improve our environment. These changes will be made more by co-operation and consent. But we must remember that people are enjoying much higher standards. Much of my constituency correspondence—letters which I used to have in my files but which have now disappeared—reflects this increased interest in noise. People living in working-class areas who at one time tolerated almost anything are begining to adopt the same attitude towards noise that people living in more affluent areas have had for some time. Just because people live in a squalid environment, with dirty factories adjacent to them, that is no reason why we should expect them to have lower standards than those who live in rather different areas.
I believe that the Bill will bring a number of advantages to my constituents, not just in abating noise but in terms of the proposals for the dumping of waste. The Black Country is a testimony to how businessmen in the past have had a total


lack of consciousness in the way in which they have disposed of their wastes. I also welcome the improvement which I believe will be made in solving problems of atmospheric pollution.
I give a welcome to the Bill, but, again, no Minister responsible for it should ever think that, having got this Bill through, the end of the road has been reached. We can never be satisfied until we have a better environment. This will come partly as a result of this Bill. It will come partly because it will create an even greater consciousness among manufacturers, local authorities and individuals. That is the significant achievement that the Bill will make.

8.35 p.m.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I enjoyed the speech made by the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George). I am sorry that the Secretary of State was not present to hear most of what his hon. Friend said. His comments on noise deserve to be noted.
In my view, the Government's task is to set the framework in which the environment shall be managed. It is not enough to introduce a Bill which condemns pollution without setting exact standards which are common to all industries which might be described as polluters. Therefore, I was surprised to hear the Secretary of State, of whom I always think as urbanely egalitarian, say that he did not see the need for common standards, particularly concerning noise abatement. I think he used the expression "social values" as the predominant qualification for deciding what noise levels were acceptable. I cannot see this. Noise is just as objectionable in the North as in the South-East of England or anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Therefore, I find it difficult to see what possible argument can be advanced for saying that local authorities shall set such standards as they please and that it should be no part of the Government's duty to consider whether those standards are adequate to reduce noise nuisance.
I was impressed by the number of times that the hon. Member for Walsall, South referred to traffic noise. Indeed, he also referred to aircraft noise. However, I want to stick with traffic noise in my comments about the concept of noise abatement zones.
We are told that the Bill will have no effect on traffic noise and that that is not its task. The Secretary of State said that, anyway, such levels as have been introduced into vehicle, car and motor bike noise are such as to make us realise that it is coming under control. On what does he base that statement? If I go out into my neighbourhood and listen, the noise that is most obvious to me is that made by buses, lorries, cars and motor bikes. I must say to the right hon. Gentleman, as I would have said to his predecessor, that I am not aware of a great reduction in that noise; I wish that I were. Neither will he find one of the noise meters proposed in the relevant Act which was meant to reduce traffic noise, in the whole of the Greater London area, because it is impossible to set up those noise meters. Therefore, after a car has become one or two years old and is beginning to show signs of being a noisy banger, no enforcement of which I know can be inflicted on its owner, certainly not in Greater London, because we do not have the wherewithal to achieve it. Therefore, to put forward the suggestion of noise abatement zones as if there will be areas in our cities which will be quiet and reasonably pleasant to live in, is humbug.
It is right that we should reduce noise coming out of the windows of factories, but we can already do that. It is right to get at the noisy family whose parties make life unbearable for the neighbours. We can already do that, though perhaps not quite as well as Clause 54 proposes. But in my view the Health and Safety at Work etc. Bill will have infinitely more effect on reducing the noise of machinery in factories than will the provisions of this Bill. Not to include any kind of control over traffic noise in the whole of the Bill is to condemn sin without criticising the devil. I put it as high as that, for I believe that we are persuading ourselves that the Bill will make a profound difference to the noise levels in neighbourhoods and communities, when I do not think this is the case.
Perhaps my criticism is too harsh, but there it must stand. Anyone who wants to know what neighbourhood noise means has only to walk out into a local street to discover just which noise makes the most difference.
I should like to add one point to what was said by the hon. Member for Walsall,


South. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that we must have levels. Sir Alan Wilson laid down levels in 1963 according to the area in which industry was sited—whether rural, suburban or inner city. Because he laid down levels he was, in effect, saying, "If you are serious about the environment, if you are serious about reducing noise levels, you will do it only by imposing a national level which may initially be quite high but which will have built into it the concept of reductions over a five-or two-year period".
Unless there is a national level, we shall be leaving it to a local authority to decide how keen it is on noise abatement and asking it to enforce its levels; and we all know that enforcement is a great problem, so I say that we are not doing much more than making an attractive gesture which will largely be hollow.
I now propose to deal with those parts of the Bill which relate to reclamation, and to refer in particular to Clause 2(2)(e), and Clause 73, which refers to atmospheric pollution, which perhaps I may paraphrase as air pollution. Clause 2(2)(e) lays a duty on a disposal authority to include in its waste disposal plan the methods by which substances in controlled waste are to be reclaimed. At first glance there may not seem to be much common ground between that clause and Clause 73, which relates to atmospheric pollution, but during what I have to say I shall try to join the two together.
I welcome the clauses which refer to the reclamation and recycling of waste material. Many speakers have referred to the virtue of recycling, and I shall add only a few brief local touches. Last Friday, in my constituency, I went round a large mill belonging to the Reed Group. The product of that mill is cardboard, and I was delighted to hear that 80 per cent. of that cardboard is made from waste paper, which shows how effective reclamation can be. I was a little surprised to be told by the director who took me round the factory that in this country 7 millions of tons of waste paper are created annually, of which only 30 per cent. is being recycled or reclaimed. There is, therefore, clearly a large task to be carried out to get more of that

waste paper into the hands of the manufacturers.
By the same token, representatives of the glass industry, with whom I have had some discussions, told me that only 20 per cent. of new glass is made up of cullet, which is broken waste glass. I gather that the industry would like to use more of this waste glass but, as with the manufacture of cardboard, the difficulty is the problem of collection.
I wonder whether we can leave this matter to local authorities, and for that reason I welcome the Secretary of State's statement that he intends to bring central Government into this question of reclamation. Indeed, I think, that a national reclamation campaign is urgently needed. I hope that there will be a co-ordinated effort between Government and industry, and between industries such as those involved in the manufacture of paper, cardboard, glass and cans.
Having said that, I also hope that thought will be given to the ways in which the ordinary householder can help in the process of recycling his waste in terms of putting it into different compartments in his dustbin. Most people have one dustbin for all their household refuse. Into it goes glass, paper, plastic, tins and anything that is considered to be household refuse, and it is the devil's own job for the local authority to try to segregate the various items.
I wonder whether there is not something to be said for a national standard for a compartmentalised dustbin, so that we can put paper in one section, bottles in another and plastic in yet another. That may be difficult, but I recall, as a child, that during the war there was a salvage campaign, and we were persuaded to wear badges to show that we had helped with collecting salvage. I see no reason why we cannot do in peace time what we were able to do in war time. We should start with households if we are to reclaim successfully.
The American idea of a bottle week is a good one, and I should like to see retail outlets which at present will not take back empties or which do not give a deposit being prepared to assist the Government in a campaign to collect old bottles. It can be achieved, and needs a little extra push from central Government.


Hence, I welcome what the Secretary of State said in this connection.
Clause 73 refers to air pollution, or atmospheric pollution. I declare an interest here. My company is employed by a company at Sandy, which reclaims animal waste. This company is one of over 140 in this country which collect animal by-products, such as offal, and processes them into a high protein material which is added to animal feeding stuffs. The industry has a turnover of £50 million a year, but the task of taking flesh and rendering it down to a high protein meal creates nauseating and unpleasant odours. People living near such plants often complain of the smell which, on occasions, is pretty unbearable. I accept that straight away, but that surely represents atmospheric pollution, which needs to be looked at rather carefully. Despite the involvement of Warren Springs and of the Government committee which considered the question of odour control, scientists have not yet found a way of totally eliminating odour from those plants, which are now at risk because of Section 100 of the Public Health Act 1936.
The Secretary of State said that Sir Brian Flowers is to head the committee which is to look into the question of air pollution. I ask the Secretary of State to ask Sir Brian to look into the question of odour pollution. This particular industry, and others like it in the chemical world are undertaking tasks of national importance. If we do not get high protein feeding stuffs from these companies we shall have to bring in the feed from abroad. These companies have national importance, but their work is now at risk simply on the grounds of local complaints about public nuisance. I am not saying that the ordinary person who finds it unbearable to be in his garden because he lives near a plant should not be able to complain and that his complaint should not be taken seriously, but we should set a standard so that plants will know whether they are doing everything possible to eliminate the nuisance. If they are, we ought perhaps to weigh the national importance against nuisance to individuals, and try to strike a balance in the middle. Will the Secretary of State consider this point when giving Sir Brian his brief?

8.50 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs: I regret that I cannot give the Bill as enthusiastic a welcome as have some of my hon. Friends. I welcome the principle, but I regret that so much of the legislation proposed is permissive. For example, Clause 73, on atmospheric pollution, says that a local authority "may"

"(a) undertake, or contribute towards the cost of, investigation and research relevant to the problem of air pollution; and
(b) arrange for the publication of information on that problem."
Many hon. Members have made it clear how important it is that the public should know more about atmospheric pollution, yet local authorities are told only that they "may" do something. I hope that the Committee will amend the Bill and give it teeth.
Clause 74, dealing with notices requiring information about air pollution, also says that a local authority "may"
by notice require the occupier of any premises in its area to furnish, whether by periodical returns or by other means, such estimates or other information as may be specified or described in the notice concerning the emission of pollutants and other substances into the air from the premises.
This just will not do. This is the weakest type of legislation that a Labour Government could propose if they were serious about the ideas in the Bill.
If I do not appear respectful, I hope that hon. Members will understand. About 95 per cent. of my 165,000 constituents suffer from bronchitis and related chest diseases. The majority of deaths are caused by carcinoma, but no one is supposed to know the reason for these deaths. My answer is that the high death rate is the result of industrial pollution.
Today, hundreds of people in the Sutton district of St. Helens were demonstrating outside Leathers Chemicals Limited, which has been known to be emitting into the atmosphere large amounts of sulphuric acid, in high concentrations. In the two years since this plant received overall planning permission on the advice of an alkali inspector for the district, it has set up its buildings on a piece of land surrounded on three sides by houses. The buildings go up to the backyard fences and people are living in fear.
I was told last year that the Alkali Inspectorate was to prosecute Leathers


Chemicals for breaking the terms of its planning permission. Has there been a prosecution? If not, why not? Who has got at whom?
The corporation issued two orders. The public hearing was held at the town hall at St. Helen's last December. I went to the first day's hearing. Without any doubt, the corporation's orders were something that had to be issued to get the firm to behave itself. People were marching through the town and threatening to block traffic to stop the road tankers carrying acid from passing into and out of the plant.
I have received many petitions and I have raised this case with various Ministers and with Secretaries of State from time to time. Yet I am told that although the evidence against this firm, which led to the corporation's two orders, was proven beyond all doubt, the Secretary of State has allowed the appeal of Leathers Chemicals Limited.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: My hon. Friend speaks of "the Secretary of State". I presume that he refers to a former Secretary of State and not to my right hon. Friend who is at present on the Front Bench.

Mr. Spriggs: I wish that I could answer that question. That is one of the reasons why I have raised the matter tonight. I should like my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to assure me that he would not do such a thing. I cannot give the assurance which my hon. Friend would like. But this is a very important matter.

Mr. Crosland: I am much obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), whom we are delighted to see back in the House after a short interval. As far as I know, neither myself nor my hon. Friend the Minister of State, whom I have consulted, has been approached by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) about this case at all. We should be delighted, when approached, to look into it very thoroughly.

Mr. Spriggs: Let me assure my right hon. Friend that up to just before the last General Election this case was raised not once but at least a dozen times.
When I attended the public hearing, when the two orders were heard at the

town hall, two graphs were displayed. They were no larger than the piece of paper which I am holding. They were shown to witnesses. It was stated that if this firm allowed an emission of more than 2·5 per cent. of sulphur dioxide it was breaking the planning permission. The top of the graph represented the 2·5 per cent. level, but there was nothing to show how far the line went beyond it because the graphs were no larger than this sheet of paper, if as large. At the inquiry I asked a question of one of the witnesses—the manager of the firm. I asked what would happen if the monitoring equipment showed that there was an emission of 50 per cent. sulphur dioxide. The witness had to tell the truth. There was nothing to denote it. The graphs allowed only a 2·5 per cent. level to show what was happening at the plant.
The right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) referred to noise. My attention has been drawn to the poor types of building being erected as homes. I can give an example of what people suffer. There need not be excessive noise in a house for a neighbour to hear it clearly. The vacuum cleaner working in the house next door to my semi-detached house sounds as though it is operating in my kitchen, because houses are jerrybuilt. No sound insulation is built into modern houses; single brick division walls are erected.
My right hon. Friend has a big job ahead. I shall let him know the outcome of today's demonstration in St. Helens. I hope that he will do something to stop the high incidence of bronchitis and carcinoma. I have been unable to obtain the necessary medical evidence to back up the case that I seek to make. I hope that the committee which he is to set up, and which I hope will visit St. Helens to investigate conditions on the spot, will have amongst its members medical men and scientists of the highest qualifications who will be able to take tests of the atmosphere and, with the cooperation of the authorities locally, I hope that we shall be able to remove once and for all the fear of people like my constituents.

9.1 p.m.

Mr. Julius Silverman: I wish to raise the question of noise, especially traffic noise. In my


constituency there is a modern monstrosity called the Gravelly interchange, perhaps better known as "Spaghetti Junction", which is the greatest conglomeration of roads in Britain. Although this interchange may be a great boon to anyone travelling by car from London to the North-West, it is completely intolerable to those living in the area—in fact, it is a living hell for many of them.
Do Clauses 53 and 54 apply to highway authorities? Do they apply to the Department of the Environment as a highway authority? Does the phrase
the local authority shall serve a notice
apply to district authorities or county authorities? What is the position when the county authority is itself the relevant highway authority?
Much could be done to mitigate the nuisance at Gravelly Hill by the construction of sound barriers. One sound barrier has already been constructed in Perry Barr, and that has been most effective in controlling noise. Perhaps the Minister will tell me whether the same is contemplated for the Gravelly Hill area and other parts of the M6. All this qualifies under the provisions of the Land Compensation Act. If there is no provision in these clauses to deal with this matter and with serving the notice to execute the necessary works, perhaps the Minister will approach the Minister for Transport, who is a member of the same great empire—the Department of the Environment—and ensure that he erects sound barriers.
Some people have already been told that they qualify for noise insulation under the Act. This may protect some of their rooms from the noise, but of course it does nothing to protect their gardens and other parts of their house, from the intolerable drone and roar which persists the whole day.
Noise from factories has been a problem in my constituency from time to time as no doubt it has been in most Birmingham industrial constituencies. I have always thought that the provision of the defence in this matter that the best practical means have been used to prevent or counteract the effect of noise has always been a great obstacle to a local authority,

as it will be under the Bill to any individual seeking a remedy to noise nuisance. That provision often renders a local authority powerless. It is simply carried over from existing legislation under the Public Health Act, but I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will look at this either in Committee or at some other stage to see whether he can make a modification especially to the exemptions clause, Clause 67, which says
In that expression 'practicable' means reasonably practicable having regard among other things to local conditions and circum stances, to the current state of technical knowledge and to the financial implications.
This provides many firms with a very easy way out of their obligations as many local health authorities, and now environmental authorities, have found when they have pursued these matters.
I have always believed and urged that the Alkali Inspectorate should be abolished and that its function should be vested in the local authority. It always seems ridiculous to me to have two authorities, one dealing with pollution by smoke from homes and the other with emissions from factories. With that duplication it is only sense to have one authority to carry out both functions. Most local authorities have the necessary expertise to do the work, and certainly the Alkali Inspectorate does not have sufficient manpower to do the job. It seems to me that in order to avoid duplication and get an effective service the time has come for the Minister to consider vesting both these functions in one authority, and the obvious choice is the local authority.

9.8 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: This is a massive Bill and for reasons which were advanced by my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs), although I welcome it, I am not entirely satisfied that it has the teeth it needs. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that this sort of problem is the result of growth but I do not wholeheartedly share his opinion on the matter. It is not growth as such which is necessarily desirable, but certain types of growth in certain places and for certain purposes, and therefore I would qualify what he said at the opening of the debate.
One of the worries of the Greater London Council is the co-ordination there


will be between the new Waste Management Council and existing local authorities. I understand that two-thirds of those authorities do not sort waste. I have great sympathy with what was said by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson), who, like me, collected salvage in his youth. It might not be a bad thing if many of the younger people, including those of Cornwall referred to by the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd), helped in the process. If there is to be sorting of metal, paper, glass and plastic in the home, which is the only sensible solution to the problem of sorting, some of our young people might spend some time in collecting them, perhaps on a semi-voluntary basis.
My own borough council, the London borough of Newham, collects paper. It is one of the several boroughs which do. The cost of waste paper has risen to such an extent that, the borough having initialed the scheme, certain people with private enterprise are now offering Green Shield stamps to householders the day before the municipal collection so that they can take away the paper first.
Clauses 2 and 3 place an onus on the local authority to produce a waste plan. I believe that proper legislation would place an onus on the producers of waste, whether solid or liquid, to make sure that the depositing of such waste was not harmful. I do not find that in the Bill. I hope that we can consider it in Committee.
I found very interesting what the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) said about the agro-chemical industry and the effect of nitrates on waterways. She has the advantage over me of having close knowledge of chemistry.
I believe that the phrase "good agricultural practice" in Clause 26 will cause difficulty. As the right hon. Lady rightly said, good husbandry should be the criterion by which we work. In an era of greater competition in agriculture, particularly with the impact of the EEC, I fear that good husbandry as such is under greater pressure, particularly as regards soil conditions. What constitututes good husbandry, and what levels of, for instance, nitrogenous fertiliser we can safely use, will be a matter of some difficulty. It is not good enough to say

that the techniques that have made available the new fertilisers will also be available to analyse the problem. It is a matter of agricultural and international economics. It is not always possible to turn back the clock of economic development by inventing techniques. It has been found in North America, where there are the classic examples of agricultural exploitation, that the problem is very difficult.
Nothing has yet been said about atomic waste. Clause 95 deals with the matter. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will be able to tell us whether it constitutes an advance on the present position. Does it mean that the Department and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be a watchdog over and above the Department of Energy in this matter? Will my right hon. Friend alone have information about the disposal of atomic waste, or will it be made more public?
I turn to the question of the powers of the Alkali Inspectorate. My right hon. Friend said that the 1906 Act, coupled with the 1968 clean air legislation, will be adequate, but we have already heard tonight that it is not adequate for Gloucester. It will be not the cars of my constituents that will perhaps be attacked by acid fumes but their lungs and bodies, as apparently happens in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens. There is an acid works adjacent to my constituency, and my constituents are sometimes told by the police to close their windows and doors because fumes from the factory are liable to be dangerous. There is a strong smell from the works on a normal day. I am not sure that the proposals in the Bill will be adequate to protect my constituents from what is already a considerable risk.
Technical expertise for boroughs might come from grouping. We do not know whether the sort of technical expertise that would have to be produced to implement the Bill will be on a district or county level. In London, for instance, the Greater London Council's scientific service would no doubt be of great help, but I do not know whether that would apply elsewhere.
I ask the Minister two questions. Whether he replies to them tonight or later by correspondence does not matter


too much. I have read alarming reports in the Press about the increased acidity of rainfall that is due particularly to the sulphur content in the air. It could have considerable effects upon many natural activities, and particularly agriculture. I hope that we consider that matter or refer it to the Royal Commission if the facts are as stated in the Press. Secondly, I refer to ozone in the upper atmosphere and the possible effects of insolation—namely, the sun—on agriculture and water supply. That is a major matter of natural ecology. If it is felt that there is a prima facie case I hope that the Royal Commission will consider it.
This is a massive, complex and possibly a useful Bill. I shall risk being slightly controversial. At the outset it was mentioned that the Bill had two parents. Usually the characteristics of such Bills are the characteristics of their parents. I am not satisfied that the Bill has the sort of teeth that I want it to have or that its teeth, if it has any, are strong enough.

9.17 p.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley: Part IV of the Bill deals with air pollution. Sheffield has had a remarkably successful record over the past decade in dealing with pollution and clean air. It now enjoys the reputation of being the cleanest industrial city in Europe. However, the council has run up against a problem which has been aired throughout the debate—namely, industrial pollution, the rôle of the Alkali Inspectorate and the limited rôle of local authorities.
Industrial pollution in Sheffield is not primarily from acid works but from steel works. Unfortunately some modern types of steel-making plant, such as the electric are furnace, are much more inclined to produce pollution than the older systems. The red fumes from the electric are furnaces just over the border, in Rotherham, have become notorious in the area. If I understand the Bill correctly, the local authorities will in future have wider powers to obtain information about pollution. However, they will have no extra powers in respect of the Alkali Inspectorate.
Some hon. Members have referred to the problems of the division of duties between the local authority and the Alkali Inspectorate. I do not think that

anyone has suggested that the members of the inspectorate are anything but technically competent, highly qualified and conscientious men who set about doing their job. However, the present system has a number of disadvantages which we should consider. I am not sure that the setting up of a Royal Commission, although it is important and its chairman is a distinguished man, is in itself enough. I hope that some modifications will be carried out to the Bill so as to give wider powers to the local authorities.
The trouble with the inspectorate is partly that it is too remote from the public. It is not, of course, an elected body and it is not directly subject to public pressure. I have seen the criticism that people do not have the foggiest idea of how to get in touch with the local inspectors. There seem to be on record some unfortunate cases which show a not very happy attitude on the part of the inspectorate when it has received complaints from the general public as opposed to authorities.
Reference has been made to the inspectorate's inadequate number of inspectors. There is also the problem that in general the inspectorate seems to want a rather cosy relationship with industry rather than, as some of us would like to see, a more abrasive and more pressurising attitude. I have looked at the inspectorate's report for 1972. There were 502 complaints in that year and 58 infractions of the law. In that period there were only three prosecutions. It would appear that it has been the standard policy of the inspectorate over many decades not to prosecute if it could avoid doing so. I do not see that this is a helpful attitude in getting powerful corporations to toe the line and obey the law if there is no inclination to haul them before the courts and to make them accountable for the errors they have made.
There is also the business of secrecy, particularly trade secrecy, which, I am sorry to say, is rehearsed in the Bill. I am not at all convinced that effective action against pollution of the atmosphere need be inhibited by arguments about trade secrets. I am sure that this problem could be overcome if there were serious intention to do so.
My right hon. Friend spoke of a freer and fuller flow of information to the


public. Anything which inhibits the freer and fuller flow of information needs to be challenged in the Bill and in practice. As a rider to that, there is the curious habit of the Alkali Inspectorate of refusing to disclose the names of the firms which offend against pollution law. Why they should be exempt from publicity, I cannot understand, because such publicity is in itself a very powerful weapon against offenders, particularly the big corporations, which do not like, for commercial reasons, to be called to account in public for offending, through pollution, against what is a form of public decency.
I am not entirely convinced that there is a complete case for passing over control in pollution matters to local authorities from the Alkali Inspectorate wholesale. But I must point out that the late Sir Gerald Nabarro, when the Clean Air Act was being debated in the House, asked that local authorities should be given wider powers, and they were given some powers to apply for control over specific premises and such powers have been exercised by a number of them, notably Sheffield.
It is perhaps a slightly, almost amusing, ironic coincidence that in the Sheffield Telegraph last Friday there was a report of a collision between the local authority and the Alkali Inspectorate in respect of specific pollution of the atmosphere. The report said:
Rotherham's controversial pollution monster—the power station—was at the centre of another storm last night when the Alkali Inspectorate were accused of not doing their job.
The attack was made by Coun. George Moores at the Environmental Health Committee, which was attended by District Alkali Inspector Mr. Edwin Thomlinson.
Councillors have already agreed to visit Whitehall in an effort to get the station closed because of its pollution menace.
Coun. Moores claimed: The inspectorate have taken no action. They do not prosecute if they are satisfied that a firm has taken all reasonable action to obviate emissions.'
He added angrily: 'Grit as large as match heads is falling in to the atmosphere and entering kids' lungs.
'I think that when we take over the power of the inspectorate we will get something done at last.
'The corporation prosecute 20 to 30 cases a year, and when they do, not many come back.
'I have not seen the inspectorate take any action in this case.'

I have not been able to check whether Councillor Moores's statements are fair or unfair, although I know that this has been a matter of controversy for some time. But it is clear that there is serious dissatisfaction among the public and elected bodies about the division of powers between elected local authorities and the national inspectorate.
I think that the volume of evidence presented in the debate, and which exists elsewhere in a number of publications, shows that this is a matter to which the Government should give attention and that they should perhaps strengthen the Bill without waiting for the complete findings of the Royal Commission.

9.24 p.m.

Mr. Hugh Rossi: The Secretary of State made a putative claim to the paternity of the Bill, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) was not quite sure whether she should deny it. I shall not go further into that speculation, except to say that the womb in which this infant was gestated was the Department of the Environment—the first of its kind in the world, created by the Conservative Government for the purpose of co-ordinating all the various aspects of environmental study.
This Bill is the natural issue of that Department. It is substantially the same as the Protection of the Environment Bill, introduced in another place by the last administration before the General Election. The main differences arise from points raised in the other place during the passage of that first Bill which the Minister undertook to consider. Possibly the most significant change that has been made by the Government is in the name. We called it the Protection of the Environment Bill because our outlook, our philosophy, is to preserve and to conserve all that is good and wholesome in this country. The Government prefer to talk of the control of pollution—a Freudian slip making a most expressive commentary on their mental makeup. In a name we have two totally disparate worlds of political thought.
Once we leave the name we find, in the readoption of our proposals, very little with which we can quarrel. Part I repeats the essential framework we laid


down to preserve the land from the random disposal of waste. It requires constructive planning and programming. While this is to be achieved within a structure of licensing, backed by legal sanction, its success depends upon full community participation and co-operation by each and every member of society.
Every one of us wants to see clean and tidy cities. We all want to enjoy green and pleasant countryside filled with sweet-flowing rivers. This can be best attained by a willingness not to befoul our environment by careless, reckless or deliberate action, ranging from discarding unwanted paper wrappers or plastic bottles to the tipping of builders' rubble or even unwanted and sometimes toxic chemical waste. This approach is more likely to succeed than constant policing and the imposition of severe penalties, which is a last resort. It is to be hoped that the greater involvement of local authorities and the requirement to prepare schemes will stimulate a greater public awareness and concerted and individual action.
One respect in which the Bill has been improved due to the further reflection which it received in the other place relates to the requirement that local authorities shall include in their waste disposal schemes proposals for the reclamation of waste. I welcome this with great enthusiasm. I have already been involved in two debates dealing with the recycling of waste. One was initiated by Sir Eric Bullus in the last Parliament, which I answered from the Government Dispatch Box in January. The other was initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw), to which I replied from the Opposition Dispatch Box shortly after the General Election.
This is a subject on which I have strong views. At the risk of boring the House for the third time, I assert that we must have regard not only to the pollution aspects of waste but to its improvidence. The human race cannot for time without end ceaselessly tear out from the bowels of this finite planet its limited resources and recklessly discharge them into the air, rivers and seas or scatter them about the landscape. These products must be husbanded, preserved and re-used. Reclamation is a major industry, with a turnover of £1,500 million. It makes a

great contribution to our balance of payments, but I agree with my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) that there is still a great deal more that local authorities can do. They have a great part to play in this. So far, it has been left mostly to industry itself.
Each year, 1 million tons of ferrous metal goes into municipal refuse. Only a small part is reclaimed. Each year, 7½ million tons of paper is used in the United Kingdom, of which 4½ million tons is reclaimed. But, of that 4½ million tons, only 15 per cent. is reclaimed by local authorities. Here again, there is room for improvement in the separate collection, storing and marketing of this useful waste.
My hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne wanted to see some obligation placed upon local authorities in this respect. This could give rise to difficulties. In the past, when some local authorities tried to reclaim paper, they found that the bottom fell out of the market and that they were left with vast stores of paper which they could not dispose of. Therefore, a great deal of thought has to be given not only to the collection of paper but also to storage facilities, possibly on a regional basis, and then for the long-term contracting and delivery to paper mills. It is in this area that the Government can give the greatest help to local authorities by co-ordinating and providing storage centres and by assisting them in finding outlets for the product.
These ways in which local authorities can begin to study how they can contribute in this area are indicated in the unofficial report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. That report shows that in Dusseldorf a municipal refuse incinerator provides steam for space heating and has as by-products scrap iron and ash for land filling. That incinerator is able to dispose of Dusseldorf's waste and show a profit at the end of the day. I should have thought that that was a possibility which our local authorities could well investigate. In Osaka there is another machine which incinerates sewage sludge and generates electricity. Then, our own Warren Spring Laboratories have been experimenting with pyrolysis, which is a method of burning waste in the


absence of air and producing fuel gases and oils as by-products.
We welcome the fact that our local authorities will now be required to give close attention to these matters. However, we recognise that the recycling of waste is a very complex business. At the turn of the year three valuable reports were published on the reclamation of metal, glass and plastics. These show the need for Government initiative in research and the co-ordination of national effort combining central Government agencies, local government and industry.
Before leaving the Department of the Environment so involuntarily in March, I was laying plans with colleagues for the establishment of a national advisory council for waste reclamation for these very purposes. I am delighted that the Secretary of State has picked up this idea in the Department and has announced today that he is proceeding with it. We shall watch very carefully whether he pursues this matter with the vigour which we would like to see.
I turn to the subject of water, and Part II of the Bill. Considerable anxiety has been expressed by agricultural interests that under this Bill they may be prevented from following what the Minister of Agriculture approves to be good agricultural practice, without being compensated.
There are safeguards in the Bill, inasmuch as there are provisions for consideration by both the Secretary of State and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of representations by a farmer before he is restricted in conducting normal farming activities. However, this procedure, whilst inhibiting arbitrary action by a water authority, still leaves the farmer liable to suffer severe financial loss. We would wish to see this matter re-examined closely in Committee.
In this connection I draw the attention of the Secretary of State to an article by Professor Scorer of the Imperial College of Science and Technology which appeared in the New Scientist of 25th April last in which he stated that the concentration of nitrates in the Thames and Lea Rivers had risen to levels considered dangerous by the World Health Organisation.
I should like to know what investigations are currently being made into this

problem. Has any assessment been made of the relative contribution to this problem by sewage effluents and fertilisers used on the land? That is relevant to the previous discussion and consideration that we have given to compensation for farmers. What progress has been made in the past few months in experiments to convert nitrates in sewage into free nitrogen by oxygenisation processes? What funds are the Government making available to provide the necessary plants as a matter of extreme urgency?
I realise that the Minister may not have the answers to those questions immediately, although I notified his private office before the debate began that I would be referring to Professor Scorer's article. I hope that he may be able to produce the answers, at least in writing, in the not too distant future.
The third part of the Bill, which shows relatively little change, is particularly welcome. Representing what is essentially a dormitory area of London, I am aware of the intolerable effects on living conditions caused by the increasing crescendo of traffic and the misery caused by industrial activity, particularly on non-conforming users in residential areas, of all-night garages, repair shops, and even all-night take-away food shops.
The public law giving local authorities power to take action against noise in such cases has so far been cumbersome and ineffective. Private citizens are reluctant to take civil proceedings for nuisance because of the expense entailed, even when their rights are undeniably infringed. The Bill will make prosecutions in magistrates' courts more effective and readily available, and could provide a useful complement to planning powers where an intensification of user producing unacceptable noise levels rather than change of user is involved.
We hope that the proposed noise abatement zones will be as effective in reducing noise pollution as have been the clean air zones in banishing smog from our cities and towns.
I turn now to Part IV, which deals with pollution of the atmosphere. Following our successful clean air policy, the two remaining main contaminants are lead from motor fuel and sulphur dioxide from the use of fuel oil in industry. The powers in the Bill to deal with both these problems are welcome.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newbury (Mr. McNair-Wilson) raised the interesting question whether obnoxious smell amounts to atmospheric pollution. It may not amount to a danger to public health, and so far it has not been possible to take action against it, but an obnoxious smell has a pronounced effect upon the quality of life, and when the Minister replies to the debate he may like to comment on the question whether smell amounts to atmospheric pollution and whether it will be caught by the Bill.
There is one matter which causes me some concern and which does not stem from the Bill itself. I refer to the comments of the Secretary of State in which he appeared to condone ill-founded and ill-informed criticisms of the Alkali Inspectorate—criticisms which were repeated by a number of his hon. Friends during the debate. The truth of the matter is that the Alkali Inspectorate is a body with cumulative experience and expertise which is second to none in the world in combating air pollution. It is highly regarded and envied throughout the world for its sensible approach, which has enabled it to produce results of the highest order in a thoroughly practical manner.
The measure of its success is not the number of prosecutions that it initiates but the degree of co-operation that it has obtained from industry in combating air pollution, often at great expense. Its disbanding would be a major retrograde step, and no local authority could begin for scores of years to replace the inspectorate's stored knowledge. I therefore ask the Secretary of State to proceed with the utmost caution in this matter.
The employment of expert staff is central to the objective of the Bill, not only in the realm of clean air but in the other aspects of waste disposal, waste reclamation, monitoring of water pollution and the novel field of noise measurement and control. New techniques will have to be mastered and new career structures will have to be introduced for what will be a new provision of environmental protection. Having regard to the heavy burdens on our rate fund, I should like an assurance that the Government are giving urgent and careful thought to how they will help local authorities in this respect.
Are the Government satisfied that the financial provision in the Bill is adequate, or will it be necessary to ask the House to extend it? The Opposition are reluctant to see any increase in public expenditure, but the Bill is concerned with the very quality of life of our people—the environment or physical surroundings in which they live out their everyday lives in their homes and in their places of work, and in which they pass their recreation and leisure time. The Bill sets out to provide a comprehensive protection for that physical environment and to make improvements where necessary. To that end the Opposition welcome and support the Bill.

9.44 p.m.

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Mr. Denis Howell): I thank all those who have taken part in the debate for the constructive approach that they have shown to this important measure. I trust that that augurs well for the passage of the Bill. Speakers from the three political parties have expressed the hope that we shall get the Bill on to the statute book as soon as possible. I am certain that that is in the interests of good government and of the environment, and I greatly welcome the support which, almost without exception, is being given to the Bill.
We are concerned here with the whole of the environment in which the British people live. We wish to ensure that our air is clean enough to breathe, that our water is pure enough to drink, that our ears are not subjected to deafening noise and that our land is not littered with discarded junk. These are monumental tasks, but I point out to the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) that they are tasks which are concerned with the control of pollution, which is part of the protection of the environment.
There is no Freudian consideration in changing the title of the Bill. The reason is that it is the wish of the Government on all occasions to be accurate in what they are trying to achieve, and we believe that the title of the previous Bill could have possibly given a misleading impression of complacency. People might have wrongly thought that it was considered that when the Bill was passed enough would have been done.
We are trying to control pollution and therefore we believe that this Bill is more


happily titled. But to be frank, one of the main reasons why we changed the title from that of the previous Bill was that we were repeatedly asked to do so by Members on both sides in another place. We considered that those criticisms were valid and we hope that the Bill is now more aptly titled.
I am obliged to the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) for her helpful and constructive speech, even though with regard to Clause 73, dealing with the powers of local authorities to undertake research into atmospheric pollution, she advanced the cause of inconsistency, which is a novel approach to our affairs. It is true that Governments behave differently occasionally when in Opposition. We now at least understand the motivating factor in the campaign of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) that we should now deal with the rating situation in a totally different manner from that in the Bill which he introduced only three months ago. If that is now part of the philosophy of the Opposition, it explains a great deal. The reason that this clause is included is that it comes directly from the Clean Air Act 1956.
While we want to concentrate research on important matters, there are large numbers of minor matters on which research is needed, and local authorities ought to be encouraged to carry this research out. That is why the clause is included. I am sure that the right hon. Lady would not wish to take away from local authorities their powers to undertake research which may be very helpful to the country as a whole.
The hon. Member for Hornsey raised a detailed matter which I understand arises from the article by Professor Scorer. I wish to deal with this immediately because I share the hon. Gentleman's concern about the matter. On the information which has been made available to me in the short time since I was given notice that he was to raise this point regarding the dangerous concentration of nitrates, especially the danger to young children, I can say that we accept that not enough is known about this matter and that these dangers do exist for young children. Experiments have been conducted at the Rye Meads Works in the Lea Valley, which at first seem to be rather encouraging. I gather that 50 per cent. of the nitrates have

been removed during the experiments that have been carried out. I assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that we regard this matter as being of the utmost urgency and that we shall continue to follow it up and to keep the problem very much in mind.
One of the keys to pollution control is constant monitoring of atmospheric pollution, noise, water pollution, and so on. By the Bill, we are committing ourselves to a process of constant monitoring of the environment without which it is impossible to make sensible judgments and continuous progress. I lay the greatest emphasis on this side of the Bill. I agree that it is impossible for the concern about the environment throughout the country to find adequate expression unless it is based on information and knowledge. We want to encourage maximum public discussion. This is the reason for the detailed work, which is often so unexciting to laymen. People tend to laugh off the creation of yet another working party or study group, but it is impossible to achieve the results we want unless we concentrate our research and monitoring facilities in this way.
Many environmentalists make the mistake of thinking that environmental problems concern only the countryside. I, at least, passionately believe, as I know my right lion. Friend does, that the most important thing in the lives of millions of people in our cities is the quality of life in their road—the litter, the noise, the nuisance and the atmosphere. We must get this right. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad that hon. Members, particularly the right hon. Member for Finchley, endorse that remark.
This Bill tackles that problem. It makes a start. With one or two of the litter provisions, it deals with urban pollution more broadly than ever before. It extends the powers to deal with waste and litter and to keep our streets clean. It tackles the problem of pollution of estuaries and coastal waters for the first time. It will bring big improvements in the quality of water in estuaries, which have often suffered major industrial development. It will help to clean up the beaches of coastal towns. It will deal with construction noise, industrial noise and noise from machinery. It provides


powers for local authorities to find out and publish comprehensive information on air pollution.
But when we have done all that, as the right hon. Member for Finchley said, the citizen has a rôle, too. It is impossible to deal with these questions and to control them unless the process of public education and involvement is maximised. I hope that, when the House and the local authorities have given the breath of life to this legislation, we shall turn our attention from the monitoring process through the education process to the involvement of all our citizens in the fight against environmental pollution in the cities.
As a nation, we have little to be proud of as we survey the way in which we litter our rubbish throughout our cities and countryside. I am glad that Schedule 3 puts an obligation on local authorities to create municipal dumps which must be open at least one day every weekend. In other words, they should be available to citizens at times at which they can be used.
We shall look at this proposal in detail in Committee. We must make it totally inexcusable for anyone in our society to litter our cities with old bedsteads, second-hand motor cars, junk and so on. We must never allow it to be said that people deposit their junk in this way because local authorities have made no adequate provision for them to do otherwise.
Street cleaning is a matter of great concern. I discovered a remarkable thing when I came fresh to the Bill. I found that nowhere in the law of this land is there an obligation upon local authorities to keep the streets clean. Therefore, in the Bill, we are enacting for the first time such a responsibility.
That brings with it another associated problem, to which we are turning our attention. I hope that in Committee we can deal with it, although it is not in the Bill at present. If one imposes a duty upon a local authority to keep the streets clean, one has to consider how it can do it, in these days of a shortage of manpower and of the use of modern machinery, if people insist upon leaving their motor cars parked outside their houses for a very long period. Therefore,

we shall have to consider some method of requiring householders, for some period of the week, to park their cars only on one side of a road in order that the street cleaners can do their duty. We are considering that matter, to which we shall turn later.
In 1972 Parliament greatly increased the penalties for the depositing of litter. But I am sorry to say that although 2,000 prosecutions have taken place—in the latest year for which I have figures—we all know by the state of our cities that that is a totally inadequate number when compared with the number of people who are behaving irresponsibly in the matter of litter. We must try to make people change their ways in this respect. I am not quite sure how we shall do that, but society as a whole must insist upon minimum standards of common decency being maintained. Ultimately, it probably comes down to prosecutions. We all sympathise with the police in the burden that they carry. But the fact is that a few well-publicised cases dealing with people depositing litter are likely to do more good for public education in this matter than almost anything else.
In the Bill we are taking new powers, for the first time, to deal with litter in streams. The Government intend to table further amendments on this matter. As Part II is at present drafted, it repeats the existing law. The putting of litter or other obnoxious matter which is not poisonous, noxious or polluting into streams is an offence only if byelaws are drawn to make it so. I am sure that the whole House will agree that that is inadequate. We propose, therefore, to introduce an amendment to ensure that the putting of litter into rivers or streams, or leaving it there, is an offence. We propose also to strengthen the power of the water authority to take it away.
I turn to the phrase "best practical means", which has cropped up so many times in many speeches. This is what I call the British approach to the question of dealing with pollution. I cannot see any suitable alternative. A possible alternative would be to lay down hard-and-fast standards—for example, in the clean air emissions standards. It is very interesting that throughout the world more and more countries, particularly the United States, are coming to appreciate the practicality of the British approach.


In other words, one does not lay down hard-and-fast standards in one Bill, which remain even though technological improvements are available. One tries in legislation to introduce a means—

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.

Ordered,
That the Control of Pollution Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with at this day's Sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Coleman.]

Question again proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Mr. Howell: Therefore, "the best practical means" takes many considerations into account—technological change, local conditions and financial implications. I sympathise with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Silverman), who raised the question of the financial implications of dealing with the best practical means approach. We will consider that. I hope that he means that regard must be paid to the social effects which might flow from making orders which could make thousands of people redundant almost overnight.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: Does the Minister of State agree that, unless we set levels, particularly in noise, we shall never know how much we are improving our standards?

Mr. Howell: I do not agree, for reasons I will come to in a moment. The best practical means was the system on which I was brought up in my early days in local government from 1946 onwards in Birmingham. It has worked. The tremendous progress made in smoke control and reducing pollution of the atmosphere is attributable almost entirely to the legislative approach of successive Governments.
The question of the Alkali Inspectorate has been discussed. It has been argued that the function of the inspectorate should be transferred. The attempt of the hon. Member for Hornsey to attribute to my right hon. Friend a lack of total sympathy for the inspectorate was far removed from reality. There is a case, though I do not believe it to be substantial, for closing down the inspectorate and transferring all its functions to local authorities. We will examine that in Committee. The inspectorate has existed

for 100 years and has built up great expertise and a knowledge of technology. It would not be practicable for every local authority overnight to take over the duties of the inspectorate.
There is much more validity in the argument that the inspectorate is probably undermanned and should be encouraged to recruit more people. I gather that on the whole one inspector deals with 60 works. I am told that when difficult cases occur, daily visits to works are made.
One or two of the difficulties from which the inspectorate has suffered recently have arisen from the frivolous, trendy, clever approach to the examination of the inspectorate's affairs. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) told us that he went to see a film today. That film caused grave offence not only to the inspectorate but to many other people. The Clean Air Council, which met only last week, took a rather dim view of the Social Audit report upon which much of the criticism of the inspectorate has been based.
What the Social Audit report said was on the whole true, but it was not the whole truth. As we all know, the truth is many sided. People who go into investigatory journalism by means of television or who wish to produce reports such as Social Audit has produced have an equal obligation with any of us here and anyone at the Alkali Inspectorate to do their job thoroughly and to see that all the facts are reported—not to base their arguments on outdated cases, which has happened here when much more recent evidence and cases were available for them to investigate if they had wished to do so. I was not surprised to hear that the Clean Air Council, which is totally neutral in the question of the Alkali Inspectorate, took great exception at its meeting last week to the Social Audit report.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Irving) for his constructive approach, an approach he adopted in spite of the pollution difficulties faced in his constituency. I assure him that the Government believe that the local authority has the same right of information, and must have the same right, as the Alkali Inspectorate


Clause 74(3) does exactly that because it says that we do not want two lots of people going into a factory for the same information. It will be the duty of the Alkali Inspectorate to get the information and the local authority will have the right to that information from the factory.
Noise is another subject with which the Bill deals, and the concept of noise abatement zones, which follow on the Scott Report, is new. Clauses 58 to 62 contain provisions to enable local authorities to designate noise abatement zones. They will measure noise levels and publish and register their findings and for the first time will have the power to prevent industrial premises within those zones from exceeding the noise levels. The authorities will be able to demand a noise reduction from them. I hope that this approach will meet with the success that we have achieved in smoke abatement zones which involve a similar concept.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) raised with some passion the question of the Leathers chemical plant in his constituency. I can say, as did my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, that as far as I know this matter has not been raised with the present Government. I will give an assurance, however, that we shall certainly immediately investigate what my hon. Friend said and see whether further action needs to be taken. I shall be happy to see my hon. Friend if he wishes to discuss the matter with me.

Mr. Spriggs: I do. Thank you.

Mr. Howell: In view of what my hon. Friend said, I should place on record that planning permission was given for this plant by the local planning authority in 1968. The Alkali Inspectorate did not advise on the plant because it was not asked to do so by the local authority which presumably did not wish to have the inspectorate's advice. My information is that the firm has been prosecuted recently and has had imposed upon it the maximum fine possible under the Act. It therefore looks as though the inspectorate has been taking positive action. An appeal is pending and it is therefore difficult to say more about this matter, but I repeat my assurance now

in the hope of seeing my hon. Friend about the matter.

Mr. Spriggs: I made a special point of investigating the allegation that the local planning authority had gone ahead without consulting the Alkali Inspectorate. I was told by a Minister in the previous Government that it had not done so. But when I saw the borough engineer, with the chairman of the planning committee, I was given the fullest possible assurance that they had consulted the district alkali inspector before taking a decision on the planning application.

Mr. Howell: My hon. Friend has heard what I said, which is on advice. If it turns out to be inaccurate, I shall certainly apologise, but I very much doubt whether it will be other than accurate. No doubt we shall both inquire into it and between us be able to establish the facts.
I was dealing with the question of noise abatement zones. I had a great deal of sympathy with the right hon. Lady's point about the whole question of other neighbourhood nuisances caused by noise, such as parties, and I discussed it in the Department. The question of discotheques is never far from our minds. Not the least of the interesting deputations I have recently received was one from the Musicians Union about the noise created by discotheques. There is a great deal of concern, particularly about some of the powers in Leeds.
Young people, as I well know, having four of them myself, are determined to play pop music on every possible occasion. Far be it from the Government, and I believe the Opposition, to wish to interfere with young people in their pursuit of these pleasures. But there is a question whether the levels of noise to which people are subjected in discotheques could be injurious to their hearing. If it is, no one would suffer more than the members of the Musicians Union, who are subjected to it for longer periods than anyone else.
I thought that the representatives of the Musicians Union took a constructive approach, saying that they did not want to interfere with young people's pleasures. On the whole, they were opposed to the Leeds approach. They wished to join us and the Noise Advisory Council in a working party to examine the long-term


injurious effects of noise. That is happening.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington raised the matter of noise at Spaghetti Junction, on which I have a great deal of sympathy. When I went with my hon. Friend to look into the hazards of lead in petrol, and called upon householders there, I could understand that while they could not measure the effect of lead in petrol on their bodies they could measure the effect of the noise nuisance from which they were suffering.
My hon. Friend also raised a complicated question on the noise barrier point, particularly the effect of Clauses 53 and 54. I cannot give him an authoritative answer tonight, but I shall investigate it and if necessary we can pursue it in Committee, to clear up any difficulty there might be about the installation of noise barriers where they are necessary.
I was interested in what the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) said about charges for discharges. He took great exception to one clause, but that clause put into legislative form what his right hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Walker) used to say—I think that on the whole it is still the policy supported by all hon. Members—that the polluter must pay. That was the philosophy enshrined in the Bill, and the hon. Gentleman cannot expect us to depart very far from it.
If the water from the hon. Gentleman's tin works is purer than the water into which it will be discharged, I think that the tin works have nothing to worry about. It is almost inconceivable that they would be asked to pay to clean up water that is dirtier than that which they are discharging.
The hon. Gentleman asked for a subvention from the Exchequer. He has little hope of getting it. It is interesting that every time some private enterprise runs into difficulty Conservative hon. Members, who are totally opposed to public involvement in private enterprise, have no difficulty in saying that we should have more national assistance for private enterprise. That is an inconsistency which I must leave the hon. Gentleman to ponder.

Mr. Mudd: I follow the Minister step by step along the very fair path that he

has blazed. However, I ask him to consider in all seriousness the fact that I am referring to jobs in Cornwall. I hope that he will not regard the matter as being trivial, as at first sight it might seem that he was doing.

Mr. Howell: I do not regard any request to the Government for money as a trivial matter. I regard the employment of people in Falmouth and Cam-borne not as trivial but as a matter of the greatest importance. It is a seat which I hope will receive the attention in future that it received—and I say this with no disrespect to the hon. Gentleman—over the years from the hon. Gentleman's distinguished predecessor and that it has received from the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to compulsory reclamation. It is difficult to know exactly what is meant by that term. It does not seem to be a very practical proposition. The hon. Member for Hornsey put the matter in perspective. We might well make some progress on matters of paper, tin, glass and plastic. There is a duty in Clause 2(2)(e) for local authorities to consider these matters, but it is no good imposing such duties unless industry will agree to take the materials which have been reclaimed. Unless an agreement is reached on that basis there will be a considerable financial burden placed upon ratepayers and local authorities. The solution to the problem is to require local authorities to consider reclamation, for them to do all that they can and to bring the authorities and industry together to ensure that the most harmonious progress can be made.
The hon. Member for Newbury and other Members referred to obnoxious odours. It is obvious that they were not aware that a departmental working party has been established. The first part of the working party's conclusions was published recently and I am happy to assure hon. Members that the second part of the working party's report will be published very soon.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) referred to radioactive waste. That is a matter that will continue to be regulated by the Radioactive Substances Act 1960. Under that Act all disposals of radioactive waste must be authorised by the Secretary of State for the Environment. My hon.


Friend will know that the Department of the Environment has a staff of specialist inspectors. Nothing in that Act is changed by the Bill. I think that that is the assurance for which he looked. Clause 95 gives powers to the UKAEA, which is Harwell, to establish certain additional advisory functions in waste disposal.
I hope that I have touched upon most of the interests of hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. I have done so briefly because of the short time available, but I assure them that the Government welcome their concern. I end as I began, by saying that matters augur well for the Bill. There has been a constructive approach. I very much hope that we can embark soon upon the further stages and get this measure on the statute book, as all of us would wish as the Bill has been twice in another place. This is obviously the first time that it has been here. It was held up, as we know, by the fortunes of political war. It is a Bill of absolute necessity if we are to demonstrate to the country that the whole House takes as seriously as the country increasingly wishes the control and protection of the environment.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

CONTROL OF POLLUTION [MONEY]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified—

Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to waste disposal, water pollution, noise, atmospheric pollution and public health, it is expedient to authorise—

(1) The payment out of money provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Secretary of State for the purposes of that Act and of any increase attributable to the provisions of that Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.
(2) The payment into the Consolidated Fund of any sums received by the Secretary of State by virtue of that Act.—[Mr. Denis Howell.]

LAND TENURE REFORM (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

Ordered,
That the Bill be referred to the Scottish Grand Committee.—[Mr. Golding.]

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Golding.]

NURSES (PAY AND CONDITIONS)

10.21 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: Although the subject matter of this debate is ostensibly the pay of nurses in Scotland, it goes very much wider, since the pay of nurses south of the Border is identical with that in Scotland. I got my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to stay late for the debate because I happen to be a Scottish Member, and that is why the debate is so titled, but my comments will range a little wider than Scotland.
It may well be said by my hon. Friend and others that the announcement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services on 23rd May of the setting up of the Halsbury Committee to inquire into the pay and conditions of nurses, and that any award made under that committee would be retrospective to that date, has overtaken this debate. In some degree I suppose that that is true. The statement was generally welcomed by the House so far as it went, and it was certainly far better than anything which the last or any previous Conservative Government ever did for the nurses and the ancillary staff in the National Health Service since it began.
Nevertheless, I had my reservations at the time, and I still have them. I thought that the statement was not good enough. Several of us had referred to an interim payment, and my right hon. Friend said,
 To agree to that would, in a way, demean the whole status and authority of the inquiry."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 23rd May, 1974; Vol 874, c. 695.]
I find that difficult to understand. My right hon. Friend also talked about threshold assistance and said that that would enable the nurses, especially the lower-paid nurses, to keep up with the increase in the cost of living. There is no guarantee that that will do so in all cases, nor do we know how long threshold agreements will continue. It is by no means certain that when phase 3

ends the Government will continue threshold agreements. On the contrary, I think that they recognise that they are highly inflationary and would like to get rid of them.
On several occasions we have been told that we are still operating phase 3 of the prices and incomes policy, and my right hon. Friend said that she would have to cut the hospital building programme if substantial pay increases were given, and that, in her talks with the unions and the negotiating machinery, there had never been any suggestion that there should be cash on the table now.
My hon. Friend knows as well as anyone that exceptions can be made to phase 3, and have been made in the case of the miners and the Glasgow firemen. I am not criticising those awards. I think that they were right. But by any test the nurses are just as exceptional and just as worthy as either of those groups. There are no statistics, as far as I can gather, dealing with the nursing shortage. I think we stopped collecting those some years ago. One estimate given to me by the union which sponsors me in this House, the Confederation of Health Service Employees, is that the shortage in the United Kingdom is about 74,000.
I would like my hon. Friend to tell me whether he has any similar figures for Scotland alone. Generally speaking, however the statistics might turn out, it is generally true that there are now more patients being treated in fewer beds. In other words, the turnover is greater. Nurses are working harder and using more sophisticated equipment and methods. It is fair to say that the staff shortages are more acute in mental hospitals where most of the COHSE members are working.
The union estimates that there is an overall nursing shortage in the psychiatric area of about 22 per cent. Again I would like my hon. Friend to give me some figures on this. I am sorry not to have given him notice of these questions. No doubt he will write to me if he does not have the information available now. There are difficulties and signs of increasing militancy.
I could quote case after case that has come to my notice in the course of my perambulations around the country, in


Larbert, Dundee and Aberdeen and in various parts of England. I will quote one or two examples. I have the permission of these people to quote their cases.
A Mr. T. Tripney, a third-year student nurse who is married and whose wife is expecting her first child in November, has a gross wage of £20·08. His average take-home pay is £16·10. He has a mortgage commitment of £7·50 per week. Another case concerns a charge nurse, Mr. S. Sayers, with 18 years nursing experience. He is supporting a wife and two children. His gross pay is £34 and his take-home pay is £25·92—to keep a wife and two kids!
I have a letter from the Paisley and District branch of COHSE written by the secretary saying,
you are no doubt aware of the many anomalies in the nursing structure of wages. It is not uncommon for qualified nurses holding senior posts and running wards of 60 patients (and sometimes more) to have a take-home pay of lust over £20 a week. In some cases young married nurses (male) are earning less than they could legally claim from social security.
These people can qualify for family income supplement and yet we are expecting them to look after upwards of 60 mental patients in a psychiatric hospital.
I have another letter, this one from COHSE in Lesmahagow, in Lanarkshire. It refers to Hartwood Hospital, which is one of the largest psychiatric hospitals, where wards of up to 120 acute psychotic patients are often left in the care of four staff. This is the kind of situation which exists not only in Scotland but throughout Britain.
I quote the case of the first-year student. 18-year old Eugene Bienek, whose weekly gross pay is £15·30 and whose weekly take-home pay is £13·42.
Finally, I mention one case in Aberdeen. The letter is from a parent, Dr. James Leckie, who talks about his daughter:
I would ask you to use your best endeavours to get the pernicious Salmon system modified …".
One of the greatest disasters in recent years was the Salmon recommendations and their implementation. This gentleman asks me to use my best endeavours

to get the pernicious Salmon system modified
… because it prevents the ward sister—who is, as I know from many years' hospital work, the pivot of the service—from obtaining her just financial reward without having to forsake the patients' bedsides for frustrating and soul-destroying administrative work. Ask any experienced hospital doctor and I am sure you will get the same answer—quite possibly unprintable! ".

Mr. Ian MacArthur: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument with great interest. Just before the last part of his speech, he said that a student nurse was getting £15 gross a week, or thereabouts. Perhaps I should declare a personal interest in this matter. I find it very hard to believe that any student nurse is earning as little as that, although I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the hardship confronting a great many student nurses today.

Mr. Hamilton: I attended a hospital meeting. Before that meeting, I asked them to write out, in their own handwriting, the details from their pay slips. I quoted from the paper what that boy, or girl—Eugene: I do not know—wrote to me. He or she said £15·30 gross, £13·42 weekly take-home pay.
I was referring to ward sisters and the consequences of the Salmon Report. I received a Written Answer from the Secretary of State on 15th May which stressed these very points. A newly appointed staff nurse gets a basic salary of £1,338. That is between £25 and £26 gross a week. A 21-year old typist in the National Health Service can get £1,149 and up to £1,596 after five years. In other words, a typist with five years' experience can get nearly £250 more than the staff nurse—£5 a week more—who is one of the key figures in any hospital ward. What is more, that £1,596 for the typist of five years' standing is only £36 a year less than the salary of a newly-appointed ward sister who is, as my doctor correspondent said,
the pivot of the service
Anyone who has been in a hospital knows that the atmosphere in a ward is created, essentially, by the ward sister.
My right hon. Friend's Written Answer gave me all those figures. It also gave figures for ambulance drivers and others. Of course, when I talk about nurses, I do


not forget the ancillary workers in the service, but there is too little time at my disposal to deal with them now. I have in mind health visitors, for example. I was at school with a girl who later became one. She is now in her mid-50s and doing a marvellous job in Newcastle. She cannot get beyond £2,000 a year, which is just about average industrial earnings, and a senior midwifery sister can get to the dizzy heights of £43 a week gross.
I watched a television programme some while ago. Nurses were top of the pops in popularity terms but bottom of the wage scale. This is quite intolerable. They have now reached breaking point. The nurses are taking to marching in the streets, making their protests. I have taken part in a few of these demonstrations. They are dignified and peaceful and even good humoured, but very determined. The nurses have had enough and can take no more. Some have resorted to militant action—walking out, refusing to treat private patients, and refusing to do overtime. The Minister has fetching charm, but it does not make any noise in the frying pan, and the nurses are saying that.
I support the nurses in their action. The nurses in Britain will not endanger the lives of patients, and Governments know that, but they are getting to the stage where they are no longer prepared to tolerate the conditions and wages to which I have referred.
I turn now to the timetable. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services said that the report will be ready by late summer. Indeed, I think she went so far as to say late August. We are not quite sure about that. She also said that, whatever the proposals, subject to the economic situation—we can understand that—they will be retrospective to 23rd May. But it is a fair guess that the House will be in recess then. The Government will not need legislation to implement the proposals. I suppose they can take executive action and bring forward a Supplementary Estimate later to pay for it. However, that is a highly unsatisfactory way of dealing with the matter.

Mr. Barry Henderson: Mr. Barry Henderson (Dunbartonshire, East) rose—

Mr. Hamilton: I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. I have already taken

too long. We could have an election in September before the full award is implemented, in which case the nurses would have to wait several months before getting a penny. Meanwhile, there is little hope of any let-up in the inflationary process in which we are caught.
Therefore, the Government must reconsider the case for giving an interim award of, say, 20 per cent. to all ancillary staff up to and including ward sister. If such a gesture is not made the unrest will continue and the militancy will grow. I do not believe that any lives will be lost, certainly not through any deliberate act of neglect by any nurse in the land, but there will be undoubted suffering and hardship and a decline in the quality and the quantity of nursing and nurses that we have come to expect.
I urge my hon. Friend, with as much good temper as I can, to go back to his right hon. Friend and to tell her that there is a strong feeling in the country, and certainly in the nursing profession, that the nurses want something and want it now. They cannot afford to wait until the end of August.

11.38 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Robert Hughes): I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) has raised the topic of nurses' pay in Scotland. I note that earlier he said that his comments were as much directed at my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services as myself. That is understandable. There is no doubt that the nurses' pay will be settled nationally and applied equally north and south of the Border.
My hon. Friend asked some detailed questions about shortages in the United Kingdom, and in Scotland in particular. There are no nationally approved criteria for staffing standards in hospitals. Therefore, it is difficult to arrive at precise shortage figures. My information is that there is no national shortage of staff in Scotland, but that there are local difficulties.
Each area health board works out its staffing complement on the basis of the facilities needed and often on the finance that is available. There being no nationally approved complement of so many nurses per bed or per ward, it is not possible to give detailed figures tonight.

Mr. Barry Henderson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Hughes: I should not give way because of the short time that is left to me to reply to the debate, and there are many points to cover, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Henderson: I think I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that there was no national shortage of nursing staff in Scotland. There are two hospitals in my constituency, and a responsible person told me that in one the number of staff was 20 per cent. below the figure required for the minimum standard of patient care, while in the other there are 750 people on the payroll to do the work of 500 people, which is the measure of part-time working. Where are the places which have more staff than are needed which compensate for the shortage?

Mr. Hughes: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will write to me about that, and I shall reply to him. This debate is about pay and conditions of nurses in Scotland, and it is a little unfair for other hon. Members to introduce detailed points such as that on this occasion.
Because I say there is no national shortage, it does not mean that we are complacent or that we think the position is perfect. My hon. Friend mentioned the letter from a doctor about the Salmon system of staffing in the hospitals. I do not have time tonight to go into this in detail, but I can say that the Salmon report was widely welcomed and applied. It is no secret that many doctors do not like the report, but they seem to forget that hospitals and wards will not run without administration, and it is right that nurses should do that administration.
It is important for the House to realise that we appreciate the work that is done by the nursing profession in the National Health Service. Those are not empty words by the Government, and that is demonstrated by the recent announcement. We are kept aware of the strong and bitter feelings in the nursing profession over the long delay in dealing with the claim for an independent revaluation of their salaries. On 17th May I had the opportunity to meet representatives of the Scottish Board of the Royal College of Nursing. I heard at

first hand their views on the pay situation which ranked high among the many matters discussed. I promised that I would report their views to the Secretary of State for Scotland and to the Prime Minister, and that I have done.
We understand the feelings of the nurses about their pay. They have never had a formal review system linking their pay with that of other workers. Nurses have become accustomed to special reviews every two or three years to enable them to catch up on pay. The last review was in 1970, and the last two serious attempts to improve the lot of nurses—the first was the reference to the National Board for Prices and Incomes in 1967 and the second was the record increase of 20 per cent. in 1970—were both undertaken by a Labour Government.
The Staff Side of the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council submitted a major claim in January 1972, but consideration of it was prevented by the Conservative Government's pay policy. Thus, nurses have had to accept what was available under that policy, but they had expected to be able to use the relativities machinery. When the Government took office the nurses naturally enough wanted to know what they would do about their claim and how soon action would be taken upon it.
We did two things: first, we decided to take action on the Briggs Report which had been available for 18 months. The Government decided to publish the report and to recommend its general acceptance. We decided, as a gesture of good faith—not to show that this was the only thing that needed to be dealt with—to make money available to begin to introduce the improvements required in nurses' training because these things are important.
We also decided that there should be an independent review of nurses' pay and conditions. As my hon. Friend will recollect, this review was announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, together with its terms of reference, on 7th June. Those terms of reference bear repeating. They are
 to examine the pay structure and levels of remuneration of related conditions of service of nurses and midwives covered by the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council with particular reference to the current claim.


The Chairman is Lord Halsbury and there will be six other members of the Committee, including three women. The Government have already said that they would not, and did not wish, to fetter the committee in any way whatsoever in regard to its findings and that any increases in pay arising from such findings would be backdated to the announcement of the independent review, that is, 23rd May.
I am told that Lord Halsbury has started work and our hope is that the inquiry can be completed by late summer or early autumn. The procedure which the Committee will adopt is up to Lord Halsbury and his other members, but I have no doubt that they will wish to proceed with all possible speed. Both sides of the Whitley Council have already been asked to submit written evidence by the end of this month.
I must be careful tonight to ensure that anything I say will not inhibit the consideration of the Review Committee and I hope I will not transgress when I say that I was extremely impressed by the submission made to me by the Scottish Board of the Royal College of Nursing on 17th May. A number of factors affecting the working conditions both in the clinical sphere and in more domestic affairs were raised. At one end of the scale it was demonstrated to me very vividly how the changing patterns of treatment and care and the adoption of various policies and practices had increased the pressure on the nurse both in terms of her work-load and in the complexity of her rôle in relation to the patient.
My hon. Friend mentioned the turnover in patients, which has increased, and the way this has led to increasing strain on nurses—

Mr. MacArthur: Mr. MacArthur rose—

Mr. Hughes: I am afraid I cannot give way, not even briefly. Time is running out very quickly. This is primarily my hon. Friend's Adjournment debate and he is entitled to answers to his questions.
We are all aware of how the different patterns of health care have increased the strains on nurses, and of how difficulties have grown over the years, especially in long-stay hospitals, such as

geriatric hospitals and hospitals for the treatment of the mentally ill——

Mr. MacArthur: Mr. MacArthur rose——

Mr. Hughes: I am afraid I cannot give way.
My hon. Friend raised the important question of the timetable. He is concerned that if the Review Body reports during the recess it may take some time for the awards which are made to get into the nurses' pay packets. I can give him the assurance he seeks on this and say that if and when pay increases are due to be implemented, regardless of whether this might be in the recess—if the Halsbury Committee works with thoroughness and speed and the report becomes available during the recess—the increases will be implemented by the area health boards because they will have the funds to make the necessary payments there and then. The question of a Supplementary Estimate having to be brought forward later would in no way affect the payment of the increases. There is no question of payment of a settlement being held up because the House might be in recess. In this respect it is important that nurses should be aware of the backdating arrangement.
My hon. Friend said he was aware that no nurse would deliberately take action which would lead to the death of a patient. I accept that entirely. During my meeting with the Scottish Board of the Royal College of Nursing I was impressed—I do not say this lightly after a two and a half hours discussion—that they were concerned that the results of militant action might lead to damage to patient care. They were also concerned about shortages of nurses and that there should be many more nurses, and that it might affect patient care if morale in the profession were not raised by Government action on pay and conditions.
I am aware of the effects of industrial action on nursing services in Scotland. I receive regular reports. I would be less than frank if I did not say that I was worried about the standard of care available to patients in several areas in Scotland. At the same time, I am impressed by the strenuous efforts made by the nursing profession, by ordinary nursing personnel and senior nursing personnel, to cover gaps here and there


and to provide the best service and care available in the circumstances. This is tiring work.
The findings of the inquiry will be unfettered. They will be implemented and backdated to 23rd May. I would ask the nurses to trust the Government to carry through the review thoroughly and to implement it. I would ask them to call off their action. At the end of the day what we are doing in the review will be to their advantage. They have nothing

to lose, because the award will be backdated. I would prefer this to be handled in a sensible manner. Both sides of the Whitley Council have already been asked—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at nine minutes to Eleven o'clock.